What is accounting autopilot?

In the finance and accounting world, undetected invoice mistakes can cost your company big time. To mitigate (or eliminate) mistakes altogether, we’ve developed an “autopiloted” invoicing system that:

• Reduces the likelihood of human error
• Frees up time spent on tedious invoicing tasks
• Dramatically increases a company’s invoice processing capacity

But, before diving in too deep, what is Autopilot?

Accounting Autopilot defined

Autopilot is very similar to “no-touch” invoices that don’t require Accounts Payable staff to make corrections.  Autopiloted invoices not only transit the Accounts Payable process without the need for any human to review or code a bill, but they also trigger activities that in the past could only be handled manually, such as launching an approval process, or posting a fully coded invoice to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. 

In Vic.ai, an invoice will be indicated as Autopiloted with the icon shown in the image below.

Looking deeper, as soon as an invoice is ingested by the accounting AI system, it predicts the vendor, invoice number, invoice date, due date, payment terms, GL accounts, and any dimension such as Customer, Location, Department, and so on, and we do this for every single line item. This work of accurately coding an invoice is usually accomplished by a sizable team that processes thousands or tens of thousands of invoices per month, IF they have enough staff to handle the volume. Yet, this challenge is imminently solvable because the work required to process an invoice into its final coded state can be fully automated. In short, using the power of AI, your accounting team can accurately predict every line item on an invoice, code it, launch the approval process, and post it to an ERP without any human ever needing to review the invoice at all. 

"The line-item recognition that Vic.ai offers is second to none. This allows our accounting staff to delegate the manual data entry of invoice processing to Vic.ai so that each accountant can process more invoices faster. This enables us to take on more clients while increasing our profit margins." Mairtini NiDhomhnaill, Founder of Countsy

How Autopilot works:

When the confidence level of an AI prediction is “low” the AI system will indicate to the AP professional that an invoice needs to be reviewed. 

Alternatively, if the confidence level of the system is extremely high to certain, the invoice can be put on “autopilot,” meaning that no human intervention is needed to process it.

The benefits of Autopilot

Accounting and finance are the foundation of any business. Both are essential to running a company, but the tasks that are generated by each department can be time-consuming and costly. AI accounting software with autopilot functionality can help you save time, keep your books in order, and reduce employee stress.

Want to optimize your accounts payable process?  Here are some of the very reasons why our customers choose Vic.ai’s autopilot invoice processing system to liberate their teams. 

1. Frees up employee time

There is a shift happening in the recruiting space. Companies can no longer expect to retain top talent by offering competitive salaries and benefits alone. Instead, employees are looking for better work-life balance and mentally stimulating work to keep them satisfied in the long run.

With Vic. ai, our Autopiloted accounting system allows AP teams to spend  80% less time on invoice processing. This means that gone are the days of having your AP teams burn the midnight oil to catch up on invoice processing. Instead, the autopilot functionality can handle invoice processing — all day and night — for your teams. 

2. Boosts invoice processing capacity

Once our AI meets a certain confidence level, it will encode the data, classify the costs, send it for approval, or even post it to an accounting system all without the need for human review. 

Because all of these steps are automated through AI technology alone, our customers who use our Vic system have seen a 355% increase in invoice processing capacity per FTE. This means they can get more invoices processed while consuming fewer resources. 

3. Increases return on investment

Finally, an autopiloted invoice processing system like the one we have pioneered at Vic.ai can bring in a 200% return on your investment. 

From improving your invoice processing capacity to mitigating human errors, our system will boost your bottom line while effectively allowing your company to scale your accounting and finance teams. 

The difference between autopilot with AI vs traditional AP solutions

What’s the difference between Autopilot with AI and more conventional approaches to invoice processing? 

Most solutions advocate Robotic Processing Automation (RPA) systems as the holy grail to automating the AP process, while Vic.ai's Autopilot harnesses the power of AI. 

Let’s take a look at the differences between both. 

Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Many companies attempting to solve the manual invoice coding problem focus on rules-based templates (commonly known as RPA) to handle various AP tasks. These templates can also be referred to as “workflows.” As the system processes an invoice, it will follow different rules before sending the final invoice off for approval from management. For instance, a template may try to look for a field that says “invoice number” in the top left corner of the document, the place it expects to find it. But what happens when it’s called “bill number” or resides somewhere else in the document. You can sense where this is going….

So, what’s the RPA solution when something happens outside the defined “rules” template? 

You need to build a new template. 

Now, if you aren’t a technology wizard, this can cost you time and money and even require outsourced talent to create or repair templates.  Building a new template can sometimes take months to complete, and by the time the template is completed, you may need a new one because, in the meantime, something changed in the invoice format. This endless cycle of creating multiple complex templates just isn’t feasible or cost-conscious in the long run.  

Autopilot with AI

By having Autopilot powered by AI, we can learn the best way to code an invoice by looking at accounting decisions that have been made in the past. The greater the volume of invoices we see, the more confident we become in our predictions, until we reach a level of certainty that allows us to completely eliminate tedious AP tasks such as coding, reviewing, initiating approval processes, and finally posting an invoice to the company's General Ledger. 

Autopilot and the AI technology that underpins it are never reliant on memorization or the need to find data in a certain place. AI is able to learn from anywhere on an invoice, no-matter where it is, and can even examine additional metadata such as an email that was forwarded with the invoice. 

You never need to “fix” broken templates. Your system will figure it out all by itself. 

“Autopilot generates a positive feedback loop where accuracy will naturally increase over time.” - Alexander Hagerup, CEO of Vic.ai

Accelerate digital transformation with Vic.ai

Did you know that 75% of workers have experienced burnout? It’s time for companies to step up and stop contributing to employee burnout that is so prevalent in today’s “hustle culture”. 

With Vic.ai our Autopilot capability enables your business to process invoices 24/7 without the need for human intervention. 

Now your employees can focus on accomplishing high-value tasks. There won’t be any need for them to work after hours to “catch up” on monotonous work that autopilot can handle for them. With autopilot, you can expect happier, more productive employees, all while benefiting from significant savings!

Streamline invoice processing the right way with Vic.ai. Let’s avoid invoice processing errors — together. Download our e-guide to see how you can start revolutionizing your financial operations today.