The goal of this blog is to explain how midsized enterprises can shift from a manual AP workflow to a faster and more reliable AI-driven process.
Anyone who runs finance at a midsized company knows the routine: invoices arrive in different formats, teams key in the same details again and again, approvals stall, small errors turn into payment delays. It is a slow cycle that can stretch into 12-15 days in a manual workflow. Costs stack up too, reaching $10–$15 per invoice for many organizations.
AI changes this picture by reading invoices automatically, checking them against POs, and reducing time and errors in a predictable way. AI powered Accounts Payable solutions bring processing time down to about 3.1 days and drop costs to as low as $3 per invoice.
What the current Accounts Payable process looks like today
Many midsized finance teams still spend a large part of their day on routine AP tasks. Invoices arrive in different formats, and someone needs to key them in line by line. This triggers a chain of reviews that can slow down if managers are unavailable or if invoice details do not align with what was ordered.
Teams also spend time chasing vendors for missing details. With so many manual steps, errors slip in easily. Numbers get mistyped. An invoice gets paid twice. A vendor record stays active even when it should not. These issues add real costs. Late fees appear and more often than not, early-payment discounts are missed. The overall pace of payments slows.
Industry data shows how expensive manual AP can be. Organizations that process invoices manually often see costs reach $12–$35 per invoice. Labor alone represents around 62 percent of total AP cost.
Error rates are high as well. Some sources report that 39 percent of manual invoices contain errors, many are duplicates or require corrections.
Time spent on processing each invoice is another pressure point. Manual data entry can take 8–12 minutes per invoice. The full end to end process can stretch to more than a week and sometimes two or more.
All of this means AP teams spend most of their time on manual entry and rework. This keeps them away from planning, analysis, and other work that could help leaders make better decisions.
How AI can change the current Accounts Payable workflow
AI improves the AP process by taking over the tasks that slow teams down. Instead of rechecking figures or sorting through mismatches, systems handle routine steps and push only exceptions to the team. This makes the workflow faster and steadier.
Here is what AI does well:
- Captures early-payment opportunities that often get missed
- Reviews spending patterns to help forecast cash more accurately
- Flags unusual activity before it becomes a bigger issue
- Blocks duplicate invoices before they move forward
- Reduces manual errors with accuracy levels close to 99 percent
This approach to implementing AI makes sure to keep human in the loop only where judgment is needed. AI manages repeated tasks. The team steps in for decisions that affect spending, vendor relationships, or financial risk. For midsized companies, this shift means less time on clerical work and more time on work that supports the business.
How Sparx brings AI into your existing Accounts Payable workflow
We recently partnered with one of the fastest growing midsized enterprise, who wanted to speed up its AP operations without adding more staff. The team processed around 50 invoices a day from more than 400 vendors. Every invoice required manual steps. They were pulling files from Google Drive. validating each one against Odoo purchase orders. checking for duplicates. and re-entering data in the ERP. Each invoice took 20–30 minutes. This slowed everything down and made it difficult to scale as invoice volume grew.
Sparx changed this by embedding an AI-driven workflow inside the systems the team already used. The platform reads invoices automatically from Google Drive. It extracts structured data and validates details with POs in Odoo. It identifies duplicates or mismatches. It creates verified bills in the ERP and sends only the exceptions to the team. This allows AP staff to focus on decisions rather than clerical checks.
The impact was immediate. Processing 50 invoices now takes minutes instead of 6.5 hours. The team can handle rising invoice volumes without hiring more staff. They are now able to do more with the same resources and spend more time on oversight instead of data entry.
Bringing it all together
For growing midsized enterprises out there, AP becomes harder to manage and scale as invoice volumes grow. Manual steps stack up. reviews slow down. teams spend more time fixing small issues than pushing work forward. These problems build gradually until they begin to affect cash flow, vendor relationships, and staff workload.
A steady path forward starts with understanding where the current workflow gets stuck. One can look at how long each step takes, which tasks repeat across invoices, and where errors commonly occur. This makes it easier to decide where automation or AI can help. Targeted improvements can make a noticeable difference without requiring a full system overhaul.
Recent developments in AI have made it possible to design and implement solutions that read invoices automatically, check details, and surface only the items that need attention. These improvements are already helping finance teams manage more work without slowing down. AI Squared’s Sparx fits well in this environment. It works inside existing systems and reduces the need to expand the AP team as invoice volume increases.
If you are exploring ways to make your AP process faster and easier to manage, our team is available to share more.
