Invoice and receipt review in accounting

The starting point

Invoices arrive as PDF attachments by email, occasionally on paper and rarely in a structured format. Someone matches them to a case, compares them with an order or contract, resolves discrepancies, assigns accounts and submits them for approval. This work piles up at month-end, and errors are caught late.

What the controlled workflow looks like

1. Intake: Documents are captured regardless of channel and matched to the relevant case.
2. AI step: Amounts, line items and references are extracted and checked against the order, contract or history. An account assignment is suggested.
3. Checkpoint: Every discrepancy, whether a price, quantity, unknown supplier or unusual amount, is flagged for a person to review. Approvals remain entirely with the team.
4. Result: An auditable case record showing which detail came from which document, and who made each decision and when.

What becomes measurable

Baseline measures include minutes per document, documents per month, the share requiring manual correction and time to approval. Impact is measured against this baseline, rather than asserted.

Prerequisites

• Access to incoming invoices and the accounting or ERP system.
• Documented review and approval rules; informal rules are enough as a starting point.
• Coordination with tax advisers or internal audit where relevant.

Where this workflow is not a good fit

If a structured e-invoicing process already covers most cases, usually only exception handling is worth addressing. For very small document volumes, a review checklist is faster than any automation.