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Example case study · Finance & Accounting

Month-end close, cut from 12 days to 5

How agents took invoice matching off a distributor’s accounts payable team, and what that did for the close.

Industry
Wholesale distribution
Size
450 people
Systems
NetSuite, a shared AP inbox, Excel
Timeline
10 weeks
12 → 5 daysMonth-end close
85%Of invoices processed with no manual work
$1.4MA year in lower costs and captured discounts

The challenge

About 2,400 invoices a month arrived by email, PDF and supplier portal. Two AP specialists spent most of each day keying them in and matching them to purchase orders, and the close waited on the backlog.

  • Exceptions were found late, often at month-end
  • Early-payment discounts were missed because approvals took too long
  • The controller spent the first week of every month chasing paperwork

The timeline

10 weeks

AuditWeeks 1–3Mapped every step from invoice to payment, sized the exceptions and ranked what to fix first.
Architecture & designWeeks 4–5Designed the four agents, the approval rules and the links to NetSuite and the AP inbox, and signed them off with the AP team.
ImplementationWeeks 6–10Launched the agents one supplier group at a time, then moved the close onto the new process.

The audit

Weeks 1–3

  • 70% of exceptions came from 9 recurring causes
  • 1 in 5 invoices arrived without a purchase order number
  • $4M of spend each month qualified for early-payment discounts, and most of it was missed

Architecture & design

Weeks 4–5

Intake agent

Reads every invoice from email, PDF and portal, and pulls out the line items.

Matching agent

Matches each invoice to its purchase order and receipt, and codes it to the right account.

Exceptions agent

Fixes the common mismatches itself and sends the rest to the right approver, with the context attached.

Close agent

Tracks every close task and flags anything late before it holds up the books.

Implementation

Weeks 6–10

Intake and matchingWeeks 6–7Live on the largest supplier group. 70% of its invoices matched with no manual work in the first week, 88% by the second.
Exceptions and approvalsWeeks 8–9The 9 common exception types fixed automatically, and approvals moved from email to one queue inside the discount window.
Close and handoverWeek 10Close agent live. The first close took 7 days, and the next took 5. The AP team was trained to review the agents’ log.

Results & ROI

Before and after

Month-end close
Before: 12 days
After: 5 days
Invoices processed with no manual work
Before: 0%
After: 85%
Exceptions found at month-end
Before: About 600
After: Under 60
Eligible early-payment discounts captured
Before: 15%
After: 90%

Return on investment

$1.4M a year

Paid back in under 2 months

Early-payment discounts captured$860K2% discounts now taken on about $43M a year of invoices approved in time
AP time moved to higher-value work$240KThree roles moved from data entry to vendor and cash work
Duplicate payments and late fees avoided$160KDuplicates and late fees caught before a payment goes out
A faster close$140KLess overtime, outside help and audit rework at month-end
Total, each year$1.4M

Example figures, for illustration.

Next case study

Deal approvals in hours, not days