Accounts payable automation that stops duplicate payments and pays suppliers on time
Bilingual invoices matched and paid on time.
See one case, screen by screen ↓A utility’s AP team takes in hundreds of supplier invoices a day for cable, meters, transformers, chemicals, fleet hire and services — by email, the supplier portal, structured e-invoice and paper, in Arabic, in English and often both on one page. Each one has to be matched to the purchase order and the goods receipt, coded, approved and scheduled. When quantities, prices or receipts do not line up, the invoice drops out, and the exception is chased by email and spreadsheet until someone clears it by hand.
Two things make it worse. When a supplier changes its invoice layout, capture fails on every invoice in the new layout, every day, until a template is changed — the analyst fixes the same thing again and again. And the same invoice arriving twice, as “HEM/2026/0917” by email and “HEM-2026-917” by the portal, or a request by email to change a supplier’s bank account, can slip into the payment run unless someone catches it by hand before the controller releases the run.
Estimated split for one invoice that drops out of the flow, in working days, by hand and with the solution.
Six specialist agents read, match, check and route every invoice in Arabic or English; analysts teach fixes and the controller releases the run.
Tuesday 13 October 2026, 10:40, at Lumina Utilities. 412 supplier invoices worth AED 38.62M have arrived today, and thirty of them come from one cable supplier that changed its invoice layout. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Noura owns the top suppliers and clears the exceptions. Her home screen shows today’s 412 invoices — 268 by email, 96 by the supplier portal, 31 by e-invoice and 17 on paper; 121 in Arabic and 77 with both languages on one page — flowing from received to captured, matched, approved and scheduled to pay. 293 went through with no one touching them: 71%. The 119 that dropped out, worth AED 12.80M, fall into trays with their reasons.
“Sarab Cable Industries changed its layout · Every one drops at capture: 30 today, AED 3.94M. Fix one and teach it, and the rest re-run.”
The work queue splits the 119 by stage — capture 33, match 48, approval 26, payment 12 — and by reason: new supplier layout 30, no goods receipt 17, price over tolerance 14, possible duplicate 6, bank details changed 3. Each row shows the amount, the invoice date, the days left of its 30 and the suggested next step. Eleven must be cleared to make Thursday’s run.
Suggested next step: “Point to the right fields once, then teach the fix”
Noura opens SCI/INV/2610/0418: 4 drums of 11 kV XLPE 3×240 mm² cable at AED 30,700 a drum, AED 122,800 plus 5% VAT, AED 128,940.00 due by 6 Nov. Every field shows the box it came from and a confidence. In the new Arabic-first layout the reader took DN-77215 from the delivery-note box as the order number (0.61, no such PO) and left the quantity, 4 drum, waiting.
“DN-77… is a delivery-note number, not an order number. No purchase order has that number, so nothing can be matched.”
Noura clicks the box under the Arabic header, رقم أمر الشراء: PO 4500718832, line 10. Then she confirms the unit from the drum length printed on the invoice — 4 drums = 2,000 m. The matcher lines it up with the PO at AED 61.40 a metre (6,000 m ordered) and goods receipt GRN 5000931177 (2,000 m received): price agrees, quantity agrees.
“1 drum = 500 m, from the drum length printed on the invoice. 4 drums = 2,000 m.”
Noura clicks Teach this fix. The fix finder writes her two corrections as rules — take the order number from the PO box, convert drums with the printed drum length — scoped to Sarab Cable Industries, layout SCI-v2, and no other supplier or layout. It finds 29 open invoices in the same layout and shows each one before and after: DN-77190 becomes 4500718790, 3 drums become 1,500 m.
“Each invoice still goes through every check: order and receipt, price tolerance, duplicate guard and approval limits.”
Fix F-031, version 1, is saved under Noura’s name. The 29 invoices are read again and sent through every check. 28 match within tolerance, pass the duplicate guard and are auto-approved, each under AED 250,000, into Thursday’s run. SCI/INV/2610/0426 bills AED 63.10 a metre against the PO’s 61.40 — 2.8%, over the 2% tolerance — and goes to Faisal Rahimi, the buyer.
“1 held: a real price rise, with Faisal Rahimi”
The funnel redraws: 321 of 412 invoices touchless, 78%, with capture at 99%. Open exceptions fall from 119 (AED 12.80M) to 90 (AED 9.12M). The 12-week trend gets a new marker for F-031, and the next payment run grows to 1,060 invoices worth AED 99.96M.
“+6.8 pts today · fix F-031 taught by Noura Haddad at 10:52”
Every invoice is compared with 24 months of paid and open invoices before it can be scheduled. Hamdan Electromechanical’s HEM-2026-917, AED 186,450.00 by the supplier portal today, is 97% alike HEM/2026/0917, received by email on 28 Sep and paid on 1 Oct in run PR-26-39: same supplier, same PO 4500716204, same amount, same invoice date. Six possible duplicates are held, AED 1,037,939.25 in all.
“Paying it would pay AED 186,450.00 twice. The agent cannot release a flagged invoice; you decide.”
The checker builds run PR-26-41 from every approved invoice due before the next run on 22 Oct. Coastline Facility Services asked by email on 11 Oct to change its IBAN; no one has yet called back on the number on file, so its 3 invoices, AED 248,300.00, are held until a second person does. Suppliers on hold are excluded, 41 invoices inside their discount window are paid first, and 11 open exceptions are flagged because their 30 days end before the next run.
Paid inside 30 days: 96.8% quarter to date · target 98%
Omar opens the controller sign-off. The duplicate guard re-checks the whole run (no new matches since 10:40), bank details are checked against the vendor master with Coastline excluded, all 1,060 invoices have a match or an approver, and the bank file is built — one file per paying account, totals agreed to the run. He signs and releases.
“The person who teaches fixes or clears exceptions cannot release a run.”
The same day’s invoices, seen by the four people who carry them — what their week looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six specialist agents read, match, check and route every invoice in Arabic or English; analysts teach fixes and the controller releases the run.
Reads every supplier invoice in Arabic, English or both on one page, including Arabic-Indic numerals, finds the supplier by tax registration number and recognises the supplier’s layout, applying any live taught fix for it.
Matches each invoice line to its purchase order line and the goods receipts not yet invoiced, converting units only from a printed or contracted conversion, and reports each difference with both values.
Compares every invoice with 24 months of the supplier’s paid and open invoices, and the same amount from any supplier within ±3 days, normalising slashes, dashes, leading zeros, reminder suffixes and transposed digits, and says how alike they are and why.
Codes non-PO invoices to GL account and cost centre from the supplier’s history and contract references, picks the approver from the authority matrix and reminds approvers before the Thursday cut-off.
Turns an analyst’s correction into a rule, finds every open invoice with the same tax number and page fingerprint, shows a before and after for each and, once approved, re-reads them and sends each through every check.
Builds the weekly run from approved invoices due before the next run, excludes suppliers on hold and invoices waiting for credit notes, pays discount-window invoices first and lists exceptions that would pass 30 days before the next run.
Releases the run; analysts clear exceptions and teach fixes. The agents propose; a named person decides.
Ask about an invoice, a supplier, an exception or the payment run in plain words. Every answer points to the invoice, order or run it comes from.
Why are Sarab Cable invoices failing since 1 October?
Sarab Cable Industries moved to a new Arabic-first invoice layout on 1 Oct. The order number now sits in a box under the Arabic header, where the delivery-note number used to be, and cable is billed per drum while the PO is in metres. All 30 of today’s Sarab invoices dropped out at capture for that one reason. Fix one and teach it, and the other 29 are re-checked.
Which exceptions must make Thursday’s payment run?
11 open exceptions reach the end of their 30 days before the next run on 22 Oct. The cut-off for Thursday is Wednesday 18:00. The queue is filtered to them, soonest first.
Show the possible duplicates held from the run
The duplicate guard held 6 invoices today worth AED 1,037,939.25. One is Hamdan Electromechanical’s HEM-2026-917 for AED 186,450.00: the same PO, amount and date as HEM/2026/0917, paid on 1 Oct. Another, Najma’s NTT-26-0412, has a different goods receipt and looks genuine.
How much have taught fixes added to the touchless rate?
Since 9 Sep analysts have taught 5 fixes, and the live ones have cleared 144 invoices with no one touching them. One fix, Mirage Fleet Rentals’ fuel surcharge, paused itself when two invoices failed a later price check.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
Tolerances, limits, look-backs and the payment calendar are settings, owned by finance. Every change is saved as a new version and recorded — version 14, 2 Oct 2026, Omar Siddiqui.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Price tolerance per line | ±2% or AED 500 | The lower of the two |
| Quantity tolerance | 0 | Billing more than was received never passes |
| Auto-approve PO-matched invoices up to | AED 250,000 | Above it, the head of procurement |
| Capture confidence needed per field | 0.92 | Below it, the field goes to an analyst |
| Duplicate look-back | 24 months | Paid and open invoices; invoice-number variants on; same-amount window ±3 days |
| Payment commitment and runs | 30 days · Thursday 14:00 | From the invoice date; weekly runs, approvers reminded Wed 12:00 and 16:00 |
| Scope of a taught fix | Supplier + layout | One supplier and one layout, never wider; preview before applying; pause automatically on a later failure |
| Non-PO approval limits | AED 50,000 · AED 500,000 | Budget owner by cost centre, then head of department; above it, the chief financial officer |
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 (Ardent Partners, Accounts Payable Metrics That Matter in 2025, via Corpay: average cost per invoice $10.89, best-in-class $2.78; best-in-class touchless rate about half of invoices). Lumina Utilities, its suppliers, orders, invoices and the people named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Software that takes a supplier invoice from the moment it arrives to a scheduled payment: it reads the invoice, matches it to the purchase order and goods receipt, codes and routes it for approval, and builds the payment run. Accounts Payable Automation does this with six agents, sends only the exceptions to people with the reason, and leaves the release of every payment run to the financial controller.
Invoices for network materials, chemicals, fleet and services arrive by email, supplier portal, e-invoice and paper. The invoice reader captures them, the PO and receipt matcher checks price and quantity against the order and the goods receipt, the duplicate guard checks 24 months of payments, the router codes non-PO invoices and picks the approver, and the payment run checker builds the weekly run. On the sample day, 293 of 412 invoices went through with no one touching them.
Yes. The invoice reader reads Arabic, English or both on one page, including Arabic-Indic numerals, and checks that the Arabic and English totals agree. Every field shows the box it came from and a confidence; below 0.92 it is left for an analyst rather than guessed.
Before an invoice can be scheduled, the duplicate guard compares it with 24 months of paid and open invoices, allowing for number variants such as slashes, dashes, leading zeros and transposed digits, and holds a likely match for a person to block or release. A changed bank account holds the supplier’s invoices until someone calls back on the number on file and a second person confirms.
When an analyst clears an exception, she can teach the fix. The fix finder turns it into a rule scoped to one supplier and one layout, previews it on every open invoice it would change, and re-runs them through every check once she approves. In the sample case one fix cleared 28 of 29 Sarab Cable invoices and lifted the day from 71% to 78% touchless.
Yes. The agents never approve an invoice, never change bank details and never release a payment. Analysts clear exceptions and approve fixes, buyers settle price and quantity, budget owners approve non-PO spend, and the financial controller signs the run — and whoever clears or teaches cannot release it.
No. It works over the ERP’s purchase orders, goods receipts, vendor master and payment proposal, and hands back coded, matched invoices and a checked bank file. Tolerances, limits and the payment calendar are your settings.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your AP policy, authority matrix, matching rules and a sample of past invoices in Arabic and English — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own invoices first.
Pay for the work done, at the contracted rate.
1-min demoTender Bid EvaluationEvery bid levelled to the same scope, so a hidden exclusion never wins the award.
1-min demoContract Obligation ManagementEvery penalty owed claimed inside its window, and no renewal missed.
1-min demoWe’ll run Accounts Payable Automation on a sample of your own supplier invoices, in Arabic and English.