Every AP team does vendor invoice processing. Few would say they do it well. An invoice lands in a shared inbox, someone opens the PDF, looks for the PO, retypes the lines and checks the total. Then they wait for an approval.
Most of the time is not in the typing. It goes to finding the PO, working out why line three does not match, and fixing an invoice that was already posted. That is why a faster scanner changes so little.
This article walks through where the hours go, what good looks like, and how a team can stop keying supplier invoices that arrive by email without a six-month project.
Where the hours really go
Finding the purchase order
The invoice quotes a PO number that is missing or wrong, and someone searches the ERP by vendor and amount. Ten minutes per invoice adds up fast.
Checking the lines
Quantities, unit prices, freight, tax. Fields are cross-referenced by hand against the PO and the goods receipt. Most invoices match. The team still checks every one.
Chasing approvals
The invoice sits in a manager’s inbox. A reminder goes out, then another. The vendor calls about payment before the approval comes back.
Fixing mismatches after posting
An invoice was keyed with the wrong quantity and posted. Now it is a credit note, a correction and a call to the vendor. Each fix costs more than the keying it replaced.
What good vendor invoice processing looks like
The invoice is read from the inbox
No forwarding to a folder, no upload portal. The email arrives and the work starts.
The vendor is identified without a template
A new vendor works from the first invoice. Nobody maintains a format per supplier, and nobody asks vendors to change how they send.
Every line is checked against the ERP before entry
The PO and the goods receipt are found, lines and totals compared. This is three-way matching done before posting, not after.
Exceptions stop with a reason
A price difference or a missing receipt stops with a plain explanation. The team handles exceptions, not every invoice.
Data stays in your environment
A direct connection to the ERP, no middleware in between. Finance and IT both sleep better.
Why extraction alone does not fix it
OCR gives you fields, not answers
A scanner tells you what the invoice total is. It does not tell you that the PO says something else, because it never looked at the PO.
Templates break when vendors change
Every new invoice layout means another template. Vendors change layouts without telling you, usually right before month end.
The check is the work
Extraction removes the typing. The hours were never in the typing. Avi Rafalson, DOConvert’s CEO, wrote about this in Beyond Extraction, the next frontier in intelligent document processing.
How it works with DOConvert
DOConvert is the AI layer for the ERP. It connects to Priority through the DOConvert Priority connector, which is bi-directional, and to Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP directly, with no middleware in between. Here is one vendor invoice.
- The invoice arrives by email, as a PDF or a scan. Nobody moves it.
- DOConvert identifies the vendor from the sender and the document, with no template.
- DOConvert finds the PO and the goods receipt in the ERP.
- Lines, quantities, prices and totals are compared against both.
- Anything that does not match stops with a reason. The AP team handles only those.
- Everything that matches is entered as a supplier invoice linked to its PO.
The same flow runs when you automate supplier invoices into Priority ERP, with the connector reading the PO and writing the invoice back.
For Oracle customers it runs through Oracle Fusion invoice automation, with the same checks against the PO and receipt before anything is created in Payables.
Wellspring Pharmacy ran this for accounts payable automation and the case study shows what the day looks like afterwards.
Who it fits
- CFOs and VPs Finance who want every invoice checked against the PO before it posts.
- Controllers and AP managers handling hundreds or thousands of vendor invoices a month by email.
- IT and IS managers on Priority, Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP or Infor M3 who want a direct connection, no middleware.
- Companies of 200 to 5,000 employees, and larger groups starting with one subsidiary.
Questions and answers
How long does implementation take?
A typical DOConvert implementation takes about 10 business days. Most teams start with one inbox or one group of vendors.
Do vendors have to send invoices differently?
No. Vendors keep emailing PDFs as they do today. There is no portal to join and no template to set up.
What happens to an invoice with no purchase order?
It stops with a reason and the team decides. No invoice is entered without passing the checks you set.
Does the data leave our environment?
No. The connection to the ERP is direct, and DOConvert can run in a dedicated cloud or on your own servers.
Is vendor invoice processing the same as supplier invoice processing?
Yes. US teams say vendor, UK teams say supplier. The flow, the checks and the problems are the same.
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