Success story highlights
Challenge: The California transportation authority struggled to process invoices quickly. They had too many invoices and relied on manual work, which slowed things down and delayed payments.
Solution: To fix the problem, CAI used AI tools, including UiPath Robots and Microsoft Azure AI. These tools for AI invoice processing helped automate the work, making the accounts payable process faster and easier.
Results:
- 64% faster: Processing invoices took much less time
- 95% accurate: AI tools checked invoices with almost perfect accuracy
- 20 hours saved weekly: Staff had more time for other tasks
A California transportation authority is the group responsible for transit projects, programs, and services that impact residents, as well as commuters and tourists in the county. Bus and rail lines, rideshares, environmental programs, active transportation, express lanes, and freeways all fall under their care.
This California transportation authority leadership was interested in what automation could achieve in the public sector, and wanted to use automation as a major pillar of their digital transformation strategy. With other automation projects already successful, the transportation authority collaborated with CAI to discuss more challenging automation and artificial intelligence (AI) service use cases. After discussing multiple possibilities, they decided to utilize AI invoice processing for the accounts payable workstream. By implementing these solutions, one of the things they hoped to discover is how AI reduces invoice processing time from days to hours.
The drag of manual transportation invoice processing
The California transportation authority receives a digital portfolio from their vendors, which includes things like detailed documentation about project information, email correspondence, and artifacts. This documentation also included transportation invoices, processing that required sorting and stamping to be paid on time. While each of these documents is important to a complete project portfolio, the finance team was struggling with how much time transportation invoice processing took. They had to print, sort, and stamp the invoice pages and reassemble the portfolios, and then archive, store, and maintain the paper records for each project. The workflow for transportation invoice processing alone required one dedicated resource, a backup associate for peak times, and a significant amount of paper and ink just to keep things moving forward.
Alleviating the strain this process created for staff was a top priority for the accounting operations team. They immediately identified this opportunity for automation and AI invoice processing. They were well versed in automation, having already seen the positive impact that automation can have in other areas of finance.
“Implementing AI invoice processing has been a game-changer for our team, saving us 20 hours of staff time each week and enabling our staff to focus on more important tasks, such as improving internal controls in other areas of the department and cleaning up aging accounts. Automation is revolutionizing our accounts payable team by enabling us to process invoices quicker, more cost-effectively, and with greater accuracy—enhancing our overall efficiency and financial management.”
The California transportation authority IT management teams were focused on pushing the automation adoption program forward. They wanted to find the right partner to help build their transportation invoice processing program from the ground up. CAI, a global professional services organization with extensive experience in automation development, was selected for this monumental task. Having proven the value and benefits of automation, the IT management team went to work expanding the automation program to business stakeholders. By joining forces and with CAI’s technical expertise, they planned to apply more modern processes with the introduction of AI invoice processing.
AI invoice processing and UiPath integration
CAI is experienced in implementing invoice processing automations for clients in both the commercial and public sector, so they weren't intimidated to add AI invoice processing into the mix. Because of this, there was also already a firm understanding that no two accounts payable processes are identical. The California transportation authority's process was unique and required a unique solution to seamlessly transfer the responsibility of sorting, stamping, and assigning invoices. To meet this need, CAI utilized their strong partnership with UiPath, a best-in-class automation platform, and the AI invoice processing automation execution agent in the tool, UiPath Robots.
The CAI team collaborated with multiple finance team stakeholders to gather requirements and understand the business processes before beginning the development of the automated process. Identifying and removing bottlenecks and streamlining the future transportation invoice processing was top of mind, as were trustworthy AI principles. To ensure accuracy and maintain confidence in the solution, they launched UiPath’s Action Center capabilities. This helped to keep humans in the loop when necessary, maintaining transparency and confidence from finance stakeholders and leaders within the organization.
In collaboration with the California transportation authority's technical and finance team stakeholders, CAI designed and developed an innovative, modern solution that used UiPath Robots, Microsoft Azure AI, and UiPath Document Understanding to perform AI invoice processing and management activities. The document extraction AI model performed with 95% accuracy overall, and through augmented intelligence, humans only occasionally helped the automated process to completion.
Bringing communication and transparency to accounts payable
Introducing AI can be concerning to employees who are new to these technologies. To address this hesitation, leadership at the California transportation authority adopted a communication strategy to be transparent with their associates in both the IT and finance departments. Throughout the project, IT management communicated the vision, goals, and technology boundaries clearly to employees and stakeholders. They also asked for feedback and encouraged suggestions from individual contributors.
The CAI team offered options for implementation that complemented the style of the finance team, and ensured seamless interaction between finance team members and the teams working on the AI invoice processing solution. The success and adoption of the automated invoice process are a direct result of the successful communication and leadership of these key individuals.
Efficiency improvements through AI invoice processing automation
The implementation of AI invoice processing and automation provided a powerful morale and efficiency boost to the accounts payable team at this California transportation authority. It might not be immediately obvious how AI reduces invoice processing time from days to hours (or even minutes), but that's what was successfully accomplished here.
Monitoring the invoice inbox went from being a nearly full-time position to occupying less than 30 minutes per day to handle process exceptions. It's worth highlighting that AI invoice processing automation solutions are not meant to eliminate staff. Instead, this is meant to optimize workflows and ensure the people behind the projects are not becoming burned out by difficult and inefficient processes. With the additional time available, the accounts payable specialist assigned to this transportation invoice processing was able to focus on more valuable projects.
With the adoption of this solution, vendor invoices and transportation invoice processing times decreased by 64% overall, with additional AI invoice processing automation planned to increase throughput in the months to come. The California transportation authority is working hand-in-hand with the CAI team for developer training, process identification, development and implementation of hyperautomation solutions, and to develop an Automation Center of Excellence that will drive innovation forward for the organization. Thanks to a partnership built on trust and shared goals, CAI and the California transportation authority teams are looking forward to many more innovative solutions in the future.
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