From 40 Hours A Week To 8 — How AI Turned A Full-Time AP Process Into A Mostly Hands-Off Operation
AVI8's accounts payable team was spending 40+ hours a week manually processing invoices — downloading, splitting, keying data, and cross-referencing purchase orders across multiple screens. LTC built an AI-powered pipeline that does all of it automatically, from inbox to ERP, with humans only stepping in for genuine exceptions.
The Client
AVI8 — Back-Office Process Outsourcing
AVI8 is a boutique back-office support firm providing finance, operations, and administrative services to small and mid-sized businesses. Their accounts payable team manages invoice processing on behalf of multiple clients — a high-volume, detail-intensive workflow where accuracy directly affects financial reporting.
When the volume of invoices grew and the manual workload became unsustainable, AVI8 partnered with LTC Software Solutions to rebuild the AP process from the ground up using AI-powered automation.
The Challenge
A Full-Time Employee Buried In Work That Added Zero Analytical Value
Every invoice arrived the same way — as an email attachment or embedded graphic — and kicked off the same exhausting sequence. Download the PDF. Split bundled documents into individual invoices. Manually key every line item into Foundation Software. Cross-reference purchase orders, quantities, and prices. Repeat, all day, every day.
Three-way matching was the real time sink. Verifying that an invoice, a purchase order, and a receiving record all agree meant bouncing between email, PDF viewers, and the ERP simultaneously. And fatigue led to errors — errors that could flow silently into financial statements and compound over time.
40+ hours per week consumed by manual invoice processing for a single client
Three-way matching required bouncing between email, PDFs, and ERP simultaneously
Fatigue-driven data entry errors creating risk of financial misstatements
Real-world invoices with handwritten edits and inconsistent formats breaking any simple automation
No audit trail or visibility into processing status across invoice batches
The Solution
An End-To-End AI Pipeline — From Inbox To ERP
LTC built a true end-to-end automated pipeline using Claude Opus (AI), Python, Prefect, and Microsoft Azure — monitoring the AP inbox, extracting invoice data using AI, validating it against the ERP, and loading clean invoices automatically. Humans only see the exceptions — and each exception comes with a detailed report explaining exactly what needs attention.
Email Ingestion & Document Processing
The system monitors AVI8's AP inbox via Microsoft Graph API. When invoices arrive, it downloads attachments, splits bundled PDFs into individual invoices, standardizes file naming, and stores originals in OneDrive. Processed emails move to a "Processed" folder. Failures go to "Failed" — nothing gets lost.
AI-Powered Data Extraction
Each invoice goes to Claude Opus via API. Claude reads the full document — including handwritten changes, non-standard layouts, and data presented in multiple formats on the same page — and returns structured data: invoice number, vendor, date, PO number, line items, quantities, prices, subtotals, freight, tax, and surcharges.
Seven-Check Three-Way Match Validation
Extracted data runs through seven validation checks: PO existence and status, line item matching, quantity verification, price verification within configurable tolerance, invoice total reconciliation, duplicate detection, and vendor validation. Each check produces a pass/fail with detailed reasoning.
CSV Generation & Exception Routing
Clean invoices transform into import-ready CSV files loaded directly into Foundation Software — no re-keying. Invoices that fail validation go to an exception queue with reports explaining exactly what didn't match. After each run, leadership receives a full summary workbook with processing stats, vendor details, and line-item breakdowns.
The Results
The AP Team Stopped Processing Invoices. They Started Managing Exceptions.
The shift wasn't just in hours saved. It was in what the AP team now spends their time on — genuine judgment work, vendor management, and higher-value client support, instead of downloading PDFs and keying numbers all day.
80% reduction in AP workload — from 40+ hours per week to approximately 8 hours
Clean invoices flow from email to Foundation Software without anyone touching them
Three-way matching that used to take hours now happens in seconds
Manual data entry errors essentially eliminated on clean invoices
Exception reports tell AP staff exactly what's wrong — resolution in minutes, not hours
Leadership gets full run summaries automatically — no logging into another system
Financial misstatement risk addressed through automated price and quantity verification
Using AI Tools To Automate Our Transactional Processes Like Accounts Payable Streamlines Our Day-To-Day Operations, Boosts Efficiency, Generates Cost Savings, Improves Accuracy In Our Back-End Financial Processes, And Reduces Inherent Risk Of Financial Misstatements Due To Human Intervention.
— Beberly Castillanes, CFO, AVI8
Show Us What You Can't See In Your Operation.
30 minutes. No pitch. Just an honest conversation about what's slowing your team down — and whether we can fix it.
Show Us What You Can't See →