A national UK retailer's finance team no longer keys supplier invoices by hand, and their own systems team builds the workflows.
This retailer's finance team keyed supplier invoices into their finance system by hand. Someone read each one and typed it in.
And typing was only part of the job. Every supplier invoice also raises control questions. Is this the right supplier? Do the bank details and address match what's on file?
Every document that comes in gets classified first: an invoice or credit note, with or without a purchase order, or a statement.
Then we match the supplier to their supplier master data by VAT number. Anything that doesn't line up goes to their team for review, like bank details that don't match the supplier record, the wrong legal entity or address, or a store number that isn't found.
Clean data lands as a CSV on SFTP, and their scheduled job imports it into their finance system. That end-to-end import has run since early April 2026. For overhead invoices backed by a purchase order, the coding is read off the order itself.
Their own finance systems team builds and changes the workflows themselves.
They signed in August 2025 and started with the overheads accounts payable team. Next came overhead invoices backed by a purchase order, and around August 2026 the stock-supplier AP team came on too.
In the first year, September 2025 to September 2026, we processed 59,760 document pages for them, counting each document once.
Their finance team told us the rollout went well and that issues got handled quickly. They said not keying invoices by hand is a big deal for the team, and that the controls matter as much as the efficiency, because the workflow checks bank details and supplier addresses. They also told us coding is more accurate, with fewer mistakes.
If your AP team types supplier invoices into your finance system and checks bank details by eye, this is the setup this retailer runs today. Here's more on accounts payable automation.
