Automate Repetitive Tasks | Processing PO-based Invoices

What can Automated Assistants do? 

Hi, I’m Annie. Today, I’m going to show you how I process purchase order based invoices in SAP. 

This accounts payable process takes the average employee or clerk approximately five to 10 minutes to complete. It involves capturing data from PDF invoices, and processing this data in SAP, which can be a very repetitive and boring process. With me at the helm this process is done within an average of 75 seconds. That’s up to eight times faster. 

Invoice processing with AI 

I start by scanning unread emails for supplier domains. Once I’ve identified that they’ve sent to the invoice I save the invoice into a predefined location. From here, I scan the invoice for all the data I need using OCR technology, then I log into SAP, either locally or via a VPN and navigate to the display purchase order page. I extract the company code that relates to the purchase order. From here, I navigate to the Enter Incoming Invoice page and enter the company code that I just extracted. Now I can populate the invoice data that I extracted before. 

Next, I enter the purchase order number relating to the invoice to display the purchase order for this invoice. Thereafter, I can check what type of VAT was applied to the purchase order and adjust the tax type on the invoice to match it. After all this, I simulate the document in the documents currency and check that the debit versus credit balance is zero and post the invoice. 

This generates a document number that I extract and store it in memory. Lastly to upload the PDF, I go to the Display Invoice Document tab and enter the extracted document number along with the year of the invoice. I then go to the store business document page by clicking services and create and finally, I choose PO based invoice and upload the PDF. And done – I do this for a multitude of invoices. pretty repetitive, right? 

The benefits of using AI 

I don’t take coffee breaks. I don’t sleep in and I can work 24 hours, seven days a week with no errors, leaving more time for employees to focus on more important and non repetitive work. Invoice processing just became a whole lot easier.

Capabilities range from making bookings, extracting and processing documents and data, sending emails and a whole host of other things that save valuable time and money.