70% Reduction in AP Processing Time
$180K annual savings | 4-month payback
Challenge
A manufacturer processing 500+ vendor invoices per month had a fully manual 18-step AP workflow spanning SAP, Excel, email approvals, and SharePoint. Processing averaged 25 minutes per invoice with three full-time AP clerks dedicated to the workflow.
- - Duplicate invoice payments averaging $45,000 per quarter
- - Missed early payment discounts worth $120,000 annually
- - Approval bottlenecks averaging 4.2 days for director sign-off
- - Month-end close delayed by 2 days due to unposted invoices
Approach
Our conversion pipeline analyzed the 18-step SOP and identified 15 steps (83%) as fully automatable, 2 as hybrid (automated data prep with human approval), and 1 requiring human judgment. We built an orchestrated solution combining UiPath for SAP transactions, Python for data processing, and API integration for approval routing.
Outcome
"We expected the automation to save us time, but the real win was the discount capture. We were leaving six figures on the table every year because we could not process invoices fast enough to hit the 10-day window."
— Controller, Manufacturing Company