The benefits of AP automation with SoftCoAP

Manual invoice processing continues to be a major challenge for finance teams, especially as invoice volumes grow and AP teams are expected to do more with the same resources. Delays, exceptions, limited visibility, and manual intervention can quickly increase costs and make it harder to maintain control across the invoice lifecycle.

This is where SoftCoAP delivers measurable value. By combining intelligent automation, AI Matching, AI Routing, AI Coding, and advanced exception handling, SoftCoAP helps organizations move beyond basic invoice automation and achieve higher levels of touchless processing.

According to Institute of Finance Management (IOFM), 62% of invoices received by organizations are still manually handled. Manual processing takes time, requires costly personnel, lacks visibility and introduces the risk of errors and fraud. Accounts Payable (AP) automation software empowers businesses by eliminating manual tasks, streamlining processes, reducing costs and freeing up cash flow.

Supplier invoices are swiftly captured, matched, approved and ready for payment through a single platform with full visibility, compliance and control over the complete AP process. SoftCo leads the market in delivering the highest automation, driven by AI which delivers 90% straight through invoice processing and the smartest usability which dramatically reduces the time to code, route and handle exceptions. Below are just some of the benefits of AP automation:

What is straight through or touchless invoice processing?

Straight Through Processing (STP), or Touchless Invoice Processing, is when an invoice is automatically captured and approved ready for payment requiring no manual intervention. The level of Straight Through Processing and the cost of processing a supplier invoice are intrinsically linked. Such ‘touchless’ processing has a significant cost benefit while also removing any risk of human error and fraud.

In a purely manual environment the cost of processing an invoice is $15.97 according to the Institute of Finance & Management (IOFM). With low automation solutions, there remains manual tasks that need to be completed to move the invoice through the process. Even in this low automation environment there are benefits compared to a pure manual paper-based approach. The average cost to process an invoice in a low automation environment is $8.78 according to the IOFM.

How high automation lowers AP costs

Exponential benefits accrue with High Automation. SoftCoAP incorporates AI to minimize the number of supplier invoices that require manual intervention. SoftCo’s AI Matching engine matches the most complex scenarios resulting in 3 times the match rate versus standard matching engines.

AI Routing and Coding technology determines the correct routing of invoices for approval, reducing the time taken to correctly route invoices by 90%. The average cost to process an invoice in a High Automation environment is just $1.77. This equates to a staggering $1.4m saving per year for organizations processing 100,000 invoices.

How does AI Matching work?

SoftCo’s AI matching technology delivers industry-leading straight-through processing and significant cost savings by incorporating new confidence scoring and industry-leading machine learning technology. SoftCo’s unique technology delivers a far higher percentage of invoices passing through SoftCoAP without requiring any Accounts Payable user intervention.

How the SoftCo AI matching engine uses confidence scoring

The SoftCo AI Matching Engine enables organizations to process a greater volume of invoices and achieve a far higher rate of touchless invoice processing. The AI Matching Engine utilizes confidence scoring to intelligently match invoices to the correct PO and PO line, even when the information on the invoice is missing certain elements or is not fully consistent with the details on your PO or GRN.

While other matching engines depend on specific information in order to complete a first-time 2-way or 3-way match, the SoftCo AI Matching Engine analyzes all other elements and provides a suggested match and presents the degree of confidence for that match. Each matching operation results in a confidence score being assigned to the strength of the match.

Customers select what confidence level will be allowed to flow through automatically to enable touchless invoice processing, while invoices matched with a lower level of confidence are presented to the AP team for review before release.

How AI-power AutoML improves match rates from day one

SoftCo’s AI-powered machine learning model, AutoML, is derived from 3 years of research and 50+ million matches. AutoML is fully automated and delivers optimal match rates from day 1. The engine is tailored for specific industries and automatically adapts to each customer’s environment. There is no need for any upfront or ongoing configuration or maintenance.

Utilizing millions of real data from Industry, Operations, Organizations, and Suppliers, SoftCo AutoML ‘learns’ based on 250+ patterns, including tolerance, aggregation, and confidence match criteria, and applies this automation to all matching models to maximize invoice matching results. With AutoML, there is 100% transparency and auditability with dashboards and interactive analytics.

Touchless matching for recurring invoices and pre-approved spend

The SoftCo Recurring Invoice module delivers touchless matching of payments against supplier contracts. SoftCo’s AI matching engine captures all key elements of a contract as soon as it is uploaded to the SoftCo platform and automates the matching of corresponding invoices to the contract as they are received. SoftCo Pre-Approved Spend creates a predefined budget that instantly and intuitively sets the boundaries within which that budget can be spent. Spend can be limited by a time period, vendor(s), products, and overall available amount to spend.

Once these boundaries have been established and Pre-Approved Spend budgets approved, the system understands when a requisition is associated with a Pre-Approved Spend budget and allows the requisition to bypass the standard approval process. With approved users able to draw down on Pre-Approved Spend budgets, the ability to react to day-to-day operational requirements is greatly improved, while also giving budget owners visibility and control to ensure all spending takes place within the defined limits controlled by the customer.

AI routing, AI coding, and advanced exception handling

Our innovative AI Routing engine utilizes AI-driven AutoML to determine the correct routing of invoices for approval, reducing the time taken to correctly route invoices by 90%. Advanced Exception Handling functionality and an improved UI provide users with clear reasons for any exception and guidance on how to best resolve it, resulting in a dramatically accelerated process.

AI Coding harnesses Machine Learning to analyze previously coded invoices and automatically apply the correct coding for new invoices with just one click. This innovative feature significantly reduces the reliance on the AP team’s knowledge and enables coding in seconds rather than minutes.

Why matching is the key to AP automation ROI

AP automation savings is all about Matching. SoftCo has the best matching engine with 90% touchless processing including AI-powered AutoML, the new Machine Learning model.

But how do you compare solutions and checkout vendor claims? Take the AI Matching Challenge. Your own invoices, with no notice, versus our competitors. Then see why our AI Matching engine leads the market.

Matching delivers the greatest savings for the AP team. It is the most important financial success factor of an AP automation project. If an invoice goes ‘straight through’ the AP process, with no need for human intervention, it provides over $10 savings per invoice versus manual processing. The equivalent of $500,000 savings for an organization handling 50,000 invoices annually.

However, many suppliers provide exaggerated claims of ‘straight through’ rates. Reality only bites after the project is live. This is why leading analyst Gartner recommends an ‘in-context’ live demo using a customer’s own critical cases to assess the real automation, up front. By presenting the supplier with a batch of challenging invoices with little notice and running them though the AP solution, the customer can distinguish between the claims and the reality!

SoftCo has the best Matching engine in the market. With only 2 hours’ notice the SoftCo AI Matching engine achieves 70% straight through processing. This rate increases to over 90% in a full implementation including our Machine Learning technology, AutoML, which brings automation to another level.

See the benefits of AP automation with SoftCoAP

AP automation delivers the greatest value when it removes manual work, improves accuracy, and gives finance teams complete control over the invoice process. SoftCoAP is designed to do exactly that.

With AI Matching, AI Routing, AI Coding, and advanced exception handling, SoftCoAP helps organizations achieve higher levels of touchless invoice processing, reduce invoice processing costs, and improve visibility across AP.

For finance teams looking to reduce manual effort, strengthen compliance, and scale AP operations without adding headcount, SoftCoAP provides the automation, intelligence, and control needed to transform invoice processing.

Book a demo with SoftCo to see SoftCoAP in action and discover how it can support your AP automation goals.