The Challenge
Our client, a logistics company processing 500+ invoices weekly, was drowning in manual data entry. Each invoice required:
- Manual extraction of vendor details
- Cross-referencing with purchase orders
- Data entry into their ERP system
- Email confirmations to vendors
Total time: 2 hours per 50-invoice batch = 20 hours/week
The Solution
We implemented a three-stage automation:
Stage 1: OCR & AI Extraction
- Used GPT-4 Vision to extract structured data
- Accuracy: 97%+
- Processing time: 30 seconds per invoice
Stage 2: ERP Integration
- Built API bridge to their Exact system
- Automatic validation against POs
- Exception handling for mismatches
Stage 3: Notification Automation
- Automated vendor confirmations
- Internal approval workflows
- Exception reporting to finance team
The Results
Week 1-2: Development & testing Week 3: Pilot with 100 invoices Week 4: Full rollout
Metrics:
- Processing time: 20 hours → 6 hours/week (70% reduction)
- Error rate: 12% → 2%
- ROI timeline: 3 months
- Annual savings: €52,000
Key Learnings
- Start with data quality:We spent 3 days cleaning historical data
- Human-in-the-loop:Complex cases still need review
- Change management:Training was crucial for adoption
Technologies Used
- OpenAI GPT-4 Vision API
- Python + FastAPI
- Exact Online API
- PostgreSQL
- React dashboard
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