AI agent for invoice processing

How it works

1. Collect

   Invoices arrive in a shared accounts-payable mailbox, a supplier portal or a scan folder. The agent saves each file with its sender and the time it arrived, so nothing is lost and nothing is counted twice.

2. Read and check

   It reads the supplier, invoice number, dates, currency, lines, tax and total, including from scans and photos. Then it checks that the lines add up, that the supplier is in your vendor list, and that the invoice is not a duplicate.

3. Match

   Where you use purchase orders, it compares the invoice with the order and the goods receipt. Matches go forward. Differences in price, quantity or tax are listed for a person.

4. Queue for approval

   The agent creates a draft bill in your accounting system with the PDF attached and routes it to the approver for that amount and cost centre. Payment stays with your team.

New to AI agents? How they work, in plain words

Real examples, setup steps and tool connections for this agent

An example conversation

An example of how a conversation runs. The grey lines show what the agent does in your systems meanwhile.

1. CustomerMorning. Can you process everything that came into the accounts inbox since Friday?
2. Read 14 invoices from the accounts inbox (11 PDFs, 2 phone photos, 1 Excel file). Extracted supplier, number, lines, tax and total from each.
3. Checked all 14 against the vendor list and last quarter's invoices. No duplicates. Matched 12 to open purchase orders and goods receipts in the ERP.
4. Agent12 invoices are matched and waiting as draft bills for approval: 9 are under the limit you set for the finance assistant, 3 go to Mr Rahimi because of the amount. Two need a look from you.
5. CustomerWhat's wrong with the two?
6. AgentInvoice 4471 from Parsa Packaging bills 600 cartons, but the goods receipt shows 540. Invoice 0093 from a new supplier is not in the vendor list. I have not created either one.
7. CustomerAsk Parsa for a credit note for the 60 cartons. Hold the new supplier until procurement confirms them.
8. Drafted an email to Parsa Packaging asking for a credit note for 60 cartons, saved for your review. Added invoice 0093 to the hold list and sent a note to procurement.
9. AgentDone. The email to Parsa is in your drafts, and procurement has been asked about the new supplier. I will check the inbox again at 2 pm.

How it is built

Where the invoices come from

The agent reads a mailbox through the mail provider's API or standard email access, watches a folder, or collects files from a supplier portal. If a portal has no API, it can open it in a browser with a login you control. Each file is stored untouched next to what was read from it.

Reading the document

Scans and photos go through document reading (OCR) first. A language model then fills a fixed form: supplier, invoice number, date, currency, lines, tax, total. For every value the agent keeps its position on the page, so a reviewer sees the number and the spot it came from side by side.

Your rules do the checking

The model reads. Code and your rules decide: lines must sum to the total, the supplier must be in your vendor master, the same supplier, number and amount cannot appear twice, and an invoice with a new number but the same amount and date within a window is flagged. Where you buy against purchase orders, the agent runs a two-way or three-way match against the order and the goods receipt.

A short, fixed list of actions

The agent can read invoices, look up vendors and orders, create a draft bill, attach the PDF, route it for approval, and email a supplier or colleague as a draft. It cannot release a payment and it cannot change a supplier's bank details. A changed bank account on an invoice is a common fraud route, so such invoices stop and go to a person who calls the supplier on a number already on file.

Doubt goes to a person

When a value is unclear, a total does not match, or the supplier is unknown, the invoice goes to a review queue instead of being guessed. Your team fixes it there, and the fix is logged.

Approval and logging

Approval follows your own thresholds by amount and cost centre, kept in your accounting system or ERP and not in the agent's instructions. Every extracted value, every check and every change by a person is logged, with who did it and when.

Where it runs, and keeping documents in your network

Prices and open orders are read live from your systems when needed, not from the model's memory. The whole agent can run on your own servers: the agent, its database, its logs and the language model itself, using open models such as Llama, Qwen or Mistral, so documents never leave your network. Open models you host yourself are smaller than the largest cloud models. For reading invoices, extracting fields and sorting them they are usually enough, and we test on your own cases before choosing. Email still passes through your mail provider, and a supplier portal still sees your login.

What you can connect to it

Gmail or Outlook

Reads the accounts inbox, saves attachments, and sends supplier queries as drafts or after approval.

QuickBooks Online

Creates draft bills with the PDF attached and reads vendors and accounts, through its API.

Xero

Creates bills and attachments and looks up contacts, through its API.

SAP

Reads purchase orders and posts supplier invoices as drafts where your SAP exposes its APIs.

Odoo

Matches vendors and creates vendor bills with attachments through its external API.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

Reads purchase orders and vendors and creates purchase invoices through its API.

ERP or accounting software without an API

Works through exports and imports, or through the screens in a browser with a limited account.

Google Sheets or Excel

Keeps the exception list and a log of every invoice, or acts as the accounting record if that is what you use today.

Supplier portals

Downloads invoices that suppliers publish on their own sites, using a login you provide.

Scanners and shared folders

Picks up scanned paper invoices as soon as they land in a folder.

Related agents

• AI agent for accounting and bookkeeping
• AI agent for procurement and purchase orders
• AI agent for data entry