Invoice processing, step by step, and where the hours actually go
Invoices arrive as they always have. We build the extraction in a business day. It costs nothing until it runs.
Invoice processing is everything between an invoice arriving and it being posted: reading it, pulling the header and line items, checking the numbers agree, matching it to a purchase order, routing it for approval and paying it. The reading and the checking are where the hours go, and they come off a person first.
Fabrx builds the API. Landing it in a given system is done by partners, so the only requirement is a system that accepts an API call.
What moves, and what it becomes
Supplier invoice against a purchase order
The straightforward one, until the supplier bills a partial delivery and the quantities stop agreeing with the order you raised.
A payable, matched to its order
Purchases and payables
Invoice with no purchase order
Nothing to match against, so the fields that decide the coding are the ones on the document: the cost centre reference, the contract number, the person named.
A payable, routed for coding
Purchases and payables
Credit note
Has to find the invoice it reverses, usually referenced by the supplier number instead of yours.
A credit, linked to its invoice
Purchases and payables
Multi-page invoice
Line items run across pages and the table often has no gridlines, so the rows have to be stitched back together in the right order.
One payable, with every line
Purchases and payables
Foreign-currency invoice
Carries its own rate, printed on the page, which is rarely the rate your ledger will use. Both numbers matter and they collapse into one easily.
A payable, in both currencies
Purchases and payables
Utility and telecom invoice
Dozens of lines, a layout that changes without notice, and a total that is the only number anyone reads until somebody audits it.
A payable, with the lines kept
Purchases and payables
What happens to one document
Your documents
Invoice arrives. Your documents
Email, supplier portal or scan. Nothing changes about how.
T+0
Fabrx
Read the header. Fabrx
Supplier, invoice number, dates, currency, totals, tax, your reference.
Read every line. Fabrx
Including tables that run across pages and tables drawn without rules.
Check the numbers agree. Fabrx
Lines against the total, tax against the rate, currency against itself.
If the numbers do not agree, or the supplier is unknown
Hold for review. Fabrx. Needs a person.
Your AP clerk sees the invoice and the number that did not agree.
needs a person
Then it rejoins the path above.
Send the payload. Fabrx
A posting-ready record at the endpoint you nominate.
Where we hand over
The handoff is a JSON payload to an HTTPS endpoint you own, or a webhook we call on your side. We hold no credentials to your ledger.
Your AP system
Becomes a payable. Your AP system
Your matching rule and your approval chain run where they run today.
What we do, and what stays yours
Fabrx builds and runs
- Reading the invoice, whatever layout it arrives in
- Pulling the header fields and every line item, including tables that cross pages
- Checking the numbers agree, lines against the total and tax against the rate
- Holding anything it cannot settle, with the invoice attached
- Delivering a posting-ready payload to an endpoint you nominate
- Adding fields when what you need changes
You keep
- Your purchase order data, and the rule that decides what counts as a match
- Your approval chain, which does not move
- The decision to pay
- Your ERP or AP system, and who is allowed to see it
- Somebody to look at the output and tell us whether it is right
When a document is wrong
A pipeline with no failure path is a diagram of a good day. These are the ones that happen.
The scan is unreadable
The invoice stops before extraction and is never guessed at.
Who sees it. Whoever sent it, by reply, with the page that failed.
- Resent and reprocessed
- Keyed by hand, the way it is done today
The lines do not add up to the total
Extraction completes and the invoice waits, with both numbers shown.
Who sees it. Your AP clerk, in the review queue.
- Corrected and released
- Sent back to the supplier
- Released as it stands, with a note
The supplier is not in your list
The invoice is held. We never create a supplier record in your system.
Who sees it. Your AP clerk, with the supplier details we read.
- Matched to an existing supplier
- Supplier created by you, then released
The rate on the invoice is not the rate in your ledger
Both are returned, the printed rate and the invoice currency, as separate fields. Neither is converted into the other.
Who sees it. Your ledger, which applies whichever rate your policy says.
- Posted at your book rate
- Posted at the invoice rate, by your rule
Four ways to deal with invoice processing
The same invoice, four approaches, and what each one asks of you.
What it costs to start
By hand
No new spend. The cost is hours your team is already paid for.
AP software you run
A licence and an implementation, before you know it reads yours.
Outsourced AP
Onboarding, then a rate per invoice or per seat.
Fabrx
Nothing. The build is free and you pay per document once it runs.
Who defines the fields
By hand
Whoever is keying, differently each time.
AP software you run
You do, in their configuration, and you maintain it.
Outsourced AP
You brief it once and the provider interprets it.
Fabrx
You tell us on the call, and we build to it.
When a supplier changes their layout
By hand
Nobody notices. A person reads the new one the same way.
AP software you run
A template driven one stops matching. Either way, keeping it reading is your side of the arrangement.
Outsourced AP
Absorbed by the provider, at the provider's pace.
Fabrx
Nothing changes. The extraction reads the fields by what they are, wherever they sit on the page.
Where the data lands
By hand
Retyped into the system you already use.
AP software you run
Their platform, then an export or a connector into yours.
Outsourced AP
The provider's portal, or a file they send you.
Fabrx
A record at an endpoint you own, inside the system you already use.
Who decides to pay
By hand
You do, once somebody has read it.
AP software you run
You do, inside their approval workflow.
Outsourced AP
You do, on what the provider passes you.
Fabrx
You do. We return the fields and the decision stays where it is.
Someone has run this
They built solutions for any situation encountered along the way. For us, this type of partnership matters.
- 300+
- Field agents using it every working day
- 4,000+
- Documents processed every month
- 4 yrs
- In production, on the same workflow
Blitz is a field sales operation reading identity documents into contracts. These figures are theirs and they are not an accounts payable result. The pipeline that reads their documents is the one described above.
What a pilot measures
Measured on your documents
Field-level accuracy, line items included
Every field on every sample invoice, scored against your correction. Line items are scored separately from the header, because they are the hard half.
Sample size
How many of your real invoices we ran. You choose which.
Spread of the sample
How many suppliers and layouts your sample covers, so the accuracy figure means something beyond your three largest vendors.
Exception rate
The share that stopped for a person, and what stopped them.
Build time
Calendar time from your samples reaching us to the pipeline running.
What we ask you for
How many minutes does one invoice take today, start to finish?
It is the only honest denominator for any claim about time saved.
How many do you process in a month?
It sets the pricing band, because the rate depends on volume.
How many arrive without a purchase order?
Those are the ones that need coding, which is a different kind of work.
How many need the line items as well as the total?
Line-level extraction is most of the build. If you only post totals, we should know before we quote.
What happens today when the lines do not add up?
It tells us where the exception should go, and who is waiting on it.
What it costs
- 01
We build it
We build the extraction, usually within one business day of receiving your sample documents.
- 02
You check it
It costs you nothing until it runs on your real documents. If the accuracy is not good enough, nothing goes into production and nothing is charged.
- 03
Then you pay
A prepaid package priced per document, valid for a calendar year. The rate depends on the document type and your monthly volume.
- No subscription
- No per-seat charge
- No setup fee at any volume
Questions about invoice processing
What is invoice processing?
It is everything between an invoice arriving and it being posted. The invoice is read, the header and line items are captured, the numbers are checked, it is matched against a purchase order where one exists, routed for approval, and paid. Most of what people mean by automating it is the reading and the checking.
What are the steps in invoice processing?
Receipt, capture, validation, matching, approval, posting and payment. Receipt and payment usually already run on systems you have, and approval is a workflow question. Capture and validation are the manual middle, and they are where the hours sit.
How long does it take to process one invoice?
It depends on how many lines it carries, whether it has a purchase order to match against, and how many people touch it before it posts. We ask for your own number on the call, because it is the only denominator that means anything for your invoices. Figures published by vendors describe their own customers.
What is three-way matching, and does it have to be manual?
It is the check that the invoice, the purchase order and the goods receipt all agree before you pay. The matching itself belongs in your system, because your purchase orders and your tolerances live there. What we do is return the fields it needs, at line level, so the match runs on data somebody did not retype.
How accurate is automated invoice processing?
The useful question is what a published number covers. Accuracy quoted on header fields like supplier and invoice number is a different and much easier measurement than accuracy on line items. We do not publish a figure. We measure field-level accuracy on your own invoices, with line items scored separately, and you see it before anything goes into production.
Do you need a template for every supplier?
No. The extraction reads fields by what they are, so it does not depend on a supplier keeping one layout. A template based tool is tied to where each field sits, so a redesign breaks it, and building one template per supplier does not scale down to the long tail of small ones.
Related
- how the build works
The call, the sample documents, and what happens in the business day between them.
- a four-year extraction in production
Different documents, same pipeline. 300 field agents, 4,000 documents a month, running since 2022.
Send us twenty invoices
We build the extraction and show you what it got right, field by field, before you pay anything.