Cash application automation that explains every match, proves it to the cent and leaves the signature to you
Every payment posted the day it lands, with each short pay sent to deductions on proof.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Software that applies incoming customer payments to the open invoices they pay: it captures the remittance wherever it arrives, matches it to the cash and the invoices, and posts the receipt to the ERP. Cash Application Automation does this with eight agents that read, match, code short pays and check every payment to the cent, and leaves the payments the policy reserves for a person to the cash application lead to sign.
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The payment and the remittance that explains it rarely arrive together. The ACH lands at 07:02 with 80 characters of addenda; the remittance advice comes an hour and 45 minutes later as a PDF in the shared inbox. Other customers post it on their AP portal, send an EDI 820, or mail a check stub to the lockbox, and most write invoice numbers their own way. Until someone pairs the cash with the remittance and keys it against open items, the money is unapplied.
Unapplied cash does damage downstream. The customer still looks past due, credit keeps their orders on hold, collectors chase an invoice that was paid, and DSO looks worse than it is. Short pays get keyed as unapplied with no reason code, so the deductions team sees a promotion deduction weeks later, without the remittance line or the agreement clause, when it is much harder to dispute.
Estimated split of a day's work for a shared-service team applying cash for four entities, by hand and with the solution.
Eight agents read, match, split short pays and check every payment to the cent; the cash application lead signs.
Wednesday 14 October 2026, at Kestrel & Vane Group's order-to-cash shared service in Columbus, Ohio. 186 payments worth $10,413,764.93 have come in for four entities, and the cut-off is 16:00. One of them, $248,317.55 from Halcyon Foods, needs the cash application lead. Here is how she works it with the agents, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Mia's day opens on the payment, not a dashboard. The day's 186 payments run across the top as a strip of tiles, 47 not yet applied, 5 h 48 min to cut-off. Halcyon Foods' ACH CCD+ is ready to sign, and the screen says why it needs her: 2 short pays over $500, $2,100.00. Below it, the agents report what each one did on this payment: 41 lines read, 41 invoices proposed, 2 short pays coded, sum exact.
She asks: “Why does the Halcyon Foods payment need me?” The answer cites the remittance, agreement TPA-2026-14 and the checker, and points her to line 10: “reads 2604319, matched to KV-INV-2604391 on amount and date (0.88).”
Halcyon's addenda said only HALCYON FOODS PMT 0019387. At 08:47 its AP team emailed remittance advice 0019387, three pages. The reader took all 41 lines and shows them beside the PDF: the prefix Halcyon leaves off added by an approved rule, two lines citing PO numbers rather than invoices, and line 10 flagged “2 digits transposed”.
The remittance reader never invents a reference. Unreadable text is marked unreadable.
The matcher paired the email with the ACH on document number 0019387 and amount, and drew the application as a fan: one line to each of 41 open invoices worth $250,417.55, labelled with the amount applied and what it matched on. 39 are paid in full. Two lines split off on an amber branch, $2,100.00 to deductions.
The matcher uses only rules a person has approved, and never another customer's or entity's invoice.
Line 14, KV-INV-2604434, is $1,240.00 short and the remittance reads PRM-2207 FALL FEATURE. The classifier ties it to trade promotion agreement TPA-2026-14 §3.2, signed 3 Jul 2026: a $1,240.00 feature fee for the September feature ad. The amount agrees, so it codes P10 Promotion and drafts deduction case DC-26-1183 for Carlos Benítez, with a request for proof of performance. Line 29's $860.00, TPR-0918, ties to §4.1.
The classifier only proposes the code. It never writes off a short pay or closes a deduction.
The checker reads the remittance and the ledger itself, without the matcher's work. $248,317.55 applied plus $2,100.00 to deductions equals $250,417.55 open; payment minus applied is $0.00. No invoice applied twice in 18 months of history. Its confidence is 0.96, lowered by the transposed line 10. The two readings sit side by side.
“If the two readings differ, the payment stops and both go to the cash application lead.”
Mia picks A02 Applied with short pays to deductions and writes why: “Short pays match TPA-2026-14; transposed line 10 checked against the invoice.” Devon Akers prepared the payment, so preparer and approver differ. The signature, reason and time go on the audit trail.
“You are signing as Mia Torres, cash application lead.”
Batch CA-1014-09 posts 41 applications to the ERP. 39 invoices clear, the two residuals are booked with reason code P10 and cases DC-26-1183 and DC-26-1184 go to Carlos Benítez, and the deposit reconciles to Ridgeway Trust ···4471 to the cent. Halcyon's past due drops from $222,159.90 to $0.00, so the watcher asks Ingrid Solberg in credit to release 3 orders worth $64,880.00, with the posting as proof.
The watcher never releases a hold itself. Ingrid presses Release hold.
An ACH for $18,240.00 came from J&R HOLDINGS LLC, a payer not on file. The agents looked the bank account up in 18 months of payments, found the credit file naming J&R Holdings as Ravensholt Outdoor's parent, and found 4 open Ravensholt invoices that add up to $18,240.00 exactly. They propose Ravensholt at 0.86; Devon confirms, or asks Ridgeway Trust for a trace.
“The agents propose; Devon Akers decides. Nothing goes to a customer until a person presses Send.”
Every Halcyon payment in 90 days needed a person for its promotion short pays. From Mia's choices the proposer wrote rule R-044 in plain words: a short pay whose remittance line cites PRM- or TPR- gets P10 Promotion, and the case cites TPA-2026-14. Backtested on 90 days: 38 cases, 38 agree, 0 disagree, $38,420.00 touched. Today's signature takes her choices to 23.
“Until the controller approves it, the agents do not use this rule.” Mia, whose choices it learned from, cannot approve it.
Touchless is 76.1% this week, up from 58.4%, against a target of 90%. 79% of payments are applied the day they arrive, up from 49%. Unapplied cash over 5 days is $589,344, down 51% from $1,214,880, and 100% of October's 118 short pays, $101,430, were coded the same day. EDI 820 customers are 94.2% touchless; lockbox images are hardest, at 58.6%.
The same Wednesday's payments, seen by the four people who carry them — what their day looked like, and what it looks like now.
Eight agents read, match, split short pays and check every payment to the cent; the cash application lead signs.
Finds and reads remittance in email PDFs and bodies, ACH addenda, EDI 820, wire remittance fields and lockbox images, and extracts every line with its references and amounts.
Signs in to customer AP portals on a schedule and downloads remittance and payment notices for the reader.
Identifies the payer, pairs payment and remittance that arrived apart, and proposes the application to open invoices from references, PO numbers, amounts, dates and approved rules.
Splits short pays and overpayments, assigns reason codes, ties each to the remittance line and the clause of the promotion, returns, freight or pricing agreement, and drafts the deduction case.
Re-reads the remittance and the ledger on its own and confirms that applied plus short pays equals the payment to the cent, and that every invoice is open, the payer's, in the right entity and currency, and not applied twice.
Posts signed and touchless applications in batches, clears invoices, books residuals with reason codes and reconciles the deposit to the bank statement.
Watches unapplied and on-account cash by age, asks credit to release holds when a posting clears a past-due balance, and drafts remittance requests to customers.
Turns choices reviewers keep making into a rule in plain words, with the decisions it came from and a 90-day backtest.
Signs short pays and exceptions. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about any payment, customer or short pay, or say what to sign. Every figure in the answer is cited, and anything that changes the ledger is proposed for a person to sign.
Why does the Halcyon Foods payment need me?
Two short pays over $500. Halcyon paid $248,317.55 by ACH and emailed the remittance at 08:47. 39 invoices are paid in full. Line 14 is short $1,240.00 (PRM-2207) and line 29 is short $860.00 (TPR-0918); both agree with agreement TPA-2026-14. The checker re-added everything on its own: difference $0.00. One line to glance at: line 10 reads 2604319, matched to KV-INV-2604391 on amount and date (0.88).
What has been unapplied for more than 5 days, and why?
$589,344.17, down 51% since go-live. The largest: Stonebrook Fitness $148,812.90, held on account at the customer's request; Larchmont Builders Supply $120,000.00, a prepayment for a project not yet invoiced; Marrow & Pike Retail $118,402.76, a pricing dispute still open; Dunmore Packaging Users Co-op $98,200.00, a rebate offset waiting for the rebate statement. Tessaline's $186,420.00 goes over 5 days tomorrow and has no remittance after 3 requests.
Approve every ready payment within my limit
Signed the ready payments as Mia Torres, each with the checker green, and posted them in batch CA-1014-09. Aldermoor Beverage Co. ($1,284,500.00) is over $1,000,000, so it was approved and sent on to Martin Cole. Short pays went to Carlos Benítez with their cases.
Which credit holds can be lifted after today's cash?
Three, once their payments post: Halcyon Foods (3 orders, $64,880.00), Greyfield Home Centers (2 orders, $18,214.50) and Orrin Medical Devices (1 order, $96,400.00). Tessaline Distribution stays on hold: its 9 Oct payment has no remittance. Ingrid Solberg is asked to release each hold, with the posting attached.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
The limits every payment is checked against are settings. Every change is submitted for the controller's approval and lands on the audit trail.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Post on its own above this confidence | 0.95 | 0.90 to 0.99; the matcher and the checker must both agree |
| A short pay over this needs the cash application lead | $500 | Any amount; smaller ones are coded and sent to deductions on their own |
| Write off on its own up to | $25 | Any amount; bank fees and rounding, reason A03 |
| The lead signs write-offs up to | $250 | Any amount; above it the controller signs |
| Payments over this need the controller too | $1,000,000 | Any amount; a second signature after the lead |
| First payment from a new bank account needs the lead | On | On · Off |
| Same-day cut-off | 16:00 | Any time, Eastern; alerts start 2 hours before |
| Wait for a remittance before drafting a request | 4 hours | Any number of hours after the cash arrives |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (The Hackett Group, Cash Application Digital World Class assessment, Aug 2025: median touchless auto-match 70%, 61% match payments on the day they arrive, and better matching can free up to $15M of unapplied cash). Kestrel & Vane Group, its customers, banks, payments and the people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software that applies incoming customer payments to the open invoices they pay: it captures the remittance wherever it arrives, matches it to the cash and the invoices, and posts the receipt to the ERP. Cash Application Automation does this with eight agents that read, match, code short pays and check every payment to the cent, and leaves the payments the policy reserves for a person to the cash application lead to sign.
The remittance reader reads email PDFs and bodies, ACH addenda, EDI 820, wire remittance fields and lockbox images, and the portal collector downloads remittance from customer AP portals, read-only. The payment matcher then pairs the remittance with the cash on references and amount, even when it arrives hours later.
The short-pay classifier splits each short pay, proposes a reason code and ties it to the remittance line and the clause of the customer's promotion, returns, freight or pricing agreement. It drafts the deduction case with that evidence, so the deductions team gets it the same day. It never writes off a short pay or closes a deduction.
A separate checker agent re-reads the remittance and the ledger on its own and confirms that applied plus short pays equals the payment to the cent, and that every invoice is open, the payer's, in the right entity and currency, and not applied twice. Nothing posts without its green; if the two readings differ, the payment goes to the lead.
Yes, but only with approval. The rule proposer turns choices reviewers keep making into a rule in plain words, with the decisions it came from and a 90-day backtest. The rule is not used until the controller approves it, and the person whose choices it learned from cannot approve it.
Yes. The agents propose and explain; a named person signs short pays over $500, write-offs over $25 and new bank accounts, and the controller signs payments over $1,000,000. The preparer and approver differ, credit releases its own holds, and nothing goes to a customer until a person presses Send.
Yes. The confidence to post on its own, short-pay and write-off limits, the controller's limit, the new bank account rule, the cut-off, the remittance wait, the reason codes, roles and notifications are all settings. Every change is submitted for the controller's approval and recorded on the audit trail.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your cash application policy, reason codes, bank files and a sample of past payments and remittances — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. A guided setup connects the bank, inbox, portals and ERP and backtests 90 days of history before go-live.
Every short-pay weighed on its proof: invalid dollars disputed, valid ones cleared fast.
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1-min demoWe'll run Cash Application Automation on a sample of your own payments and the remittances that came with them.