Accounts payable automation with AIfrom invoice to journal entry, validated
Arconte reads every supplier invoice, matches it against the purchase order and what was received, routes it for approval under your rules and posts it to your ERP. Anything that does not match goes to a queue, with the reason shown.
What is accounts payable automation with AI?
Automating accounts payable with AI means letting an agent take on the repetitive part of the supplier payment process: receiving each invoice, reading it, validating it against the purchase order and the goods received, routing it for approval and posting it to the accounting system. Your team stops keying in data and focuses on the exceptions. Payment is still scheduled by your ERP or your bank.
Arconte is Vantegrate's AI agent that does this work. It reads Argentine invoices (classes A, B and C, and the e-invoice XML), Mexico's CFDI e-invoice and Colombia's e-invoice, and it validates the tax ID on each one: CUIT in Argentina, RFC in Mexico or NIT in Colombia. This guide walks through the process step by step, what gets checked at each match and how the result is measured. Accounts payable is one of the functions Vantegrate covers with its enterprise AI agents.
The accounts payable process, step by step
The accounts payable process has six steps, from the invoice that arrives to the journal entry recorded in the accounting system. With Arconte in place, the agent handles three, two stay with your team and the last one belongs to your ERP. The table shows who does each step and where the agent's work ends.
| Step | Who does it | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Intake | Arconte | Watches the invoice inbox, the supplier portal, Drive or SharePoint, and the photos taken at the warehouse. It discards duplicates by file fingerprint and by document number. |
| 2. Reading and classification | Arconte | Tells invoices, credit notes, delivery notes and purchase orders apart, and extracts the header and line items with a confidence score for each field. |
| 3. Validation | Arconte | Checks the tax ID format, the internal arithmetic and the three-way match against the purchase order and the goods received. |
| 4. Exceptions | Your team | Only the uncertain field or the out-of-tolerance difference goes to the queue, with the image crop beside it. Everything else stays filled in. |
| 5. Approval | Your team | Based on your rules by amount, cost center and supplier. A purchase made without a prior purchase order always requires sign-off. |
| 6. Posting | Your ERP | Receives the header, the line items and the link to the original file. If it rejects the entry, the document goes back to the queue with the ERP's exact error message. |
The full workflow, with the approval rules and tolerances, is defined with your team in the first two weeks.
Outside Arconte: supplier payments are still scheduled and executed by your ERP or your bank. Arconte delivers the invoice validated, approved and posted, and it does not move money.
Three-way match: what gets compared and what happens if it does not match
The three-way match compares the invoice with the purchase order and with what was actually received. It is the control that prevents paying for what was never ordered or never arrived. This is how Arconte applies it, field by field:
If your company does not issue purchase orders for everything, the control adapts: an invoice with no prior order has nothing to be matched against, so it goes straight to the right approver based on amount and cost center.
| What is checked | Against what | If it does not match |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier | The tax ID (CUIT, RFC or NIT) against your supplier master file | Goes to review: supplier not registered or inactive |
| Purchase order | That supplier's open orders | Goes to review: order does not exist or is already closed |
| Unit price | The price agreed in the order | Within tolerance it passes; outside it, it goes to review with the difference flagged |
| Quantity | What was received according to the delivery note or the receipt recorded in your system | The difference is flagged on the line |
| Totals | The sum of the line items, taxes and withholdings | Goes to review: arithmetic error |
| Duplicate | The invoice's unique key: supplier, type and number | Blocked: you are notified that it was already entered |
You set the price and quantity tolerance, by supplier or by purchase category.
How invoices come in and where they go
Arconte does not ask you to change how your invoices arrive or which accounting system you use. It picks up documents from the channels you already use and delivers the data to the ERP you already have, with the original file linked so that no journal entry is left without its supporting document.
| Stage | Options | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Input | Dedicated inbox, shared folder, Drive or SharePoint, the supplier portal webhook and a photo from a phone | Opens compressed attachments and splits a PDF that bundles several invoices together |
| Formats | Native or scanned PDF, JPG, PNG, TIFF and the e-invoice XML | In Argentina, class A, B and C invoices; in Mexico, the CFDI; in Colombia, the e-invoice with the supplier's NIT |
| Output in Argentina | Tango Gestión and Bejerman | Header, line items and the link to the original file |
| Output in Mexico | Contpaqi | Through the desktop SDK or the Contpaqi Nube API, depending on the product |
| Output in any country | SAP or any system with an API | If the system has no API, through a file import or into the staging database your team already uses |
The path for each connection is defined during discovery, by looking at your actual setup.
Accounts payable KPIs and how to calculate them
Before you automate, it pays to measure how the process works, because that baseline is what the result gets compared against. These are the five KPIs an accounts payable team tracks, with their formulas.
To estimate what manual data entry costs you before talking to anyone, use the paperwork cost calculator.
| KPI | How it is calculated | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per invoice | Total cost of the AP department for the period ÷ invoices processed | What each invoice costs you, including salaries, tools and rework |
| Cycle time | Average days between receiving the invoice and its approved posting | Whether you capture early payment discounts and close the month on time |
| Exception rate | Invoices that needed a person ÷ invoices received | How much manual work is still left |
| Straight-through processing | Invoices posted with no intervention ÷ invoices received | The number that moves the most with automation |
| DPO | (Accounts payable ÷ cost of goods sold) × days in the period | How many days, on average, it takes you to pay your suppliers |
What Arconte does not do and when it is not worth it
Better to know this before the demo. Arconte delivers clean, validated data to your accounting system, but parts of the process stay with your team or with other systems, and in some cases the savings do not pay for the implementation.
- It does not pay: payment is scheduled and executed by your ERP or your bank.
- It does not issue invoices: nor does it sign them digitally or file tax returns.
- It does not choose accounts: it applies the coding rules you define, and a new account is your team's call.
- It is not an ERP: it does not replace your accounting system, it feeds it the data.
- Low volume: with a handful of invoices a week, you are better off as you are.
- Everything in XML: if nearly all your invoices arrive as e-invoice XML and your ERP already matches them against the purchase order, there is little left to automate.
- No one on the queue: without someone handling exceptions in the first weeks, the process stays half done.
From your real invoices to production in 4 to 6 weeks
The timeline holds when there is a point person who knows the purchasing process and there is access to the accounting system. What usually stretches it is finding out late that the approval rules were never written down.
Discovery
Weeks 1 and 2: we review your document types, connect your systems and configure the validation rules and tolerances.
Training
Weeks 3 and 4: tests with your real documents, including the hard scans, and field-by-field accuracy tuning.
Go-live
Weeks 5 and 6: gradual rollout to production, with support after launch.
What sets the most efficient accounts payable teams apart
Public industry figures on the top 20% of accounts payable teams compared with the rest. They help size the gap and are not an Arconte result.
78%
Lower cost per invoice at the best-performing accounts payable teams, compared with the rest
9%
Of their invoices get flagged for issues, less than half the rate of their peers
Industry benchmark, not an Arconte result. Ardent Partners compares the top 20% of performers (Best-in-Class) with the rest of the market. Every implementation is measured against your own team's baseline.
Arconte, the AI agent for documents
Accounts payable is one of the things Arconte handles. The same agent reads delivery notes, purchase orders and contracts, and leaves validated data in your accounting system.
Arconte
Intelligent document processing (IDP)
Arconte is Vantegrate's AI agent for document processing: it extracts and validates data from invoices, delivery notes, purchase orders and contracts, with no per-supplier templates, and flags for review anything it is not sure about.
Explore ArconteSecure AI agents
Arconte runs 100% on Salesforce and Oracle Cloud infrastructure, certified SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001. Vantegrate enables, the customer operates and certifies.
See the security modelOracle PartnerRuns on Oracle Cloud (OCI)
For workloads that need their own infrastructure, Arconte runs on OCI with defined data residency and Oracle's generative AI services.
Vantegrate and OracleAccounts payable automation FAQ
What finance and accounting teams ask before automating supplier payments.
Does Arconte pay suppliers?
Does Arconte pay suppliers?
No. Arconte leaves the invoice validated, approved and posted in your ERP. Payment is scheduled and executed by your ERP or your bank, with the process you already have. What changes is that the invoice reaches that stage with no data entry errors and with its supporting document attached.
What happens if the invoice does not match the purchase order?
What happens if the invoice does not match the purchase order?
It depends on how far off it is. If the price or quantity difference is within the tolerance you set, the invoice moves on. If it exceeds it, it goes to the review queue with the difference flagged on the line and the image crop beside it, so your team can decide in one click: accept it, dispute it with the supplier or ask for a credit note.
Does it work if my company does not use purchase orders?
Does it work if my company does not use purchase orders?
Yes. Without a purchase order there is no three-way match, but the other checks still run: tax ID format, internal arithmetic, supplier in the master file and duplicates. An invoice with no prior order goes to the right approver based on amount and cost center, and it always requires sign-off.
Does it connect to my ERP even if it has no API?
Does it connect to my ERP even if it has no API?
Yes, although the path changes. With Tango Gestión, Bejerman, Contpaqi or SAP the connection is direct. If your system is old or closed, it is handled through a file import in the format it accepts, or by writing to the staging database your team already uses. You never need to switch ERPs to get started.
How is it different from OCR?
How is it different from OCR?
OCR turns the image into text, but it does not understand what each piece of data means: it needs a template for each supplier's format, and when the supplier changes the invoice, the template breaks. Arconte interprets the structure of the document and validates every field against your rules and your data. The comparison with other tools is in intelligent document processing software.
How much does it cost to automate accounts payable with Arconte?
How much does it cost to automate accounts payable with Arconte?
Arconte is priced in two parts: an initial implementation quoted for each company and a monthly subscription with AI credits to process your documents, which scale up if your volume grows. There is no lock-in. For the number in your case, request a quote; to estimate first what manual data entry costs you, use the paperwork cost calculator.
See how Arconte would process your invoices
Send us a real batch, tricky invoices included, and we will show you the result field by field. If you would rather start with pricing, request a quote.
Francisco Morales, co-founder, takes your call. We reply on WhatsApp within 4 business hours, no strings attached.