Let's imagine any given week in the accounts payable department. María, a billing specialist, arrives at 9 in the morning with 100 invoices from suppliers in her inbox in different formats. Some are PDFs, others enetering from different portals to download, etc.
This means that each one requires a different manual task:
1. Read the document (5 minutes)
2. Extract manually the data: supplier, quantity, accounting account (5 minutes)
3. Search for the corresponding purchase order in SAP (2 minutes)
4. Check that the numbers match (2 minutes)
5. Send for approval (1 minute)
Total: 15 minutes per bill.
If your company processes 500 invoices a day, that's 125 hours of manual work per week.
What changes with automation
A recent Forrester study observed that large companies that decided to automate these processes with OpenText, registered until 153,000 hours recovered in 3 years.
In practice, this means less repetitive manual work and $5.5 million savings in labor that didn't go to Data entry, but which can be strategically relocated. In this specific case, 24 different processes were automated (not only invoices, but also purchase orders, contracts, HR documentation).
And the most important number: 15 minutes to 45 seconds per invoice.
How financial automation works in practice
When an automation is implemented correctly, the flow is transparent. An invoice enters (by email, portal, or scan) and what the system does is:
1. It captures it automatically. Understand where each data is (supplier, amount, lines). It doesn't need a human reading.
2. Search for the purchase order. It automatically connects the invoice with the PO in SAP. If it matches, there is no friction.
3. Approves or withholds, depending on the configured rules. For example, business rules can be configured so that an invoice of less than €10,000 and that matches a certain PO is directly approved. If it is larger or there is a discrepancy, the approver is automatically notified.
4. It automatically posts the invoice. Accounting entries are generated without intervention.
5. Archive. For auditing, compliance, future search.
All in less than a minute. No human touched the document except for exceptions (and there are few).
How does process automation impact the Finance team?
When Forrester visited companies that automated processes, they didn't finf jobs being replaced by AI, quite the contrary. Many employees who were dedicated to these repetitive and manual tasks were internally moved to more strategic positions such as negotiating with suppliers, analyzing trends, improving processes, monitoring the regulatory compliance and regulations, etc.
Example of ROI after automation
If the management of saving “time” is not a sufficiently justified fact, let's put it in euros:
Typical investment year 1 (depending on the company/system)
Software + implementation: 80,000€ - 200,000€
10-12 weeks of project
Benefit (Year 1):
51.000 hours recovered: 1M€
Error reduction: 150,000€
Closing cycle improvement: 400,000€
And it doesn't stop at year 2, let's remember that according to the Forrester study, 153,000 hours were saved in three years, although this is obviously a concrete example and the data will vary depending on the specificity of each company.
Why OpenText works better than other alternatives?
Some companies try generic RPA solutions (robots that automate clicks) that are often fragile, break down (generating more stoppages) or that require constant maintenance.
With OpenText, it's different:
• Understands real documents. The system reads the content (supplier, amount, lines) regardless of where it comes from. If tomorrow the format changes, it still works.
• Learn sfrom exceptions. If a new type of invoice appears, the system learns.
• Allows a native integration with SAP. It is not an external system. Workers are still working at SAP.
• Unlocks a complete lifecycle management in one place, without parallel systems: Capture, Approval, Accounting, Archiving, Legal Retention, Auditing.
Example of a Brait client where we implemented OpenText
With the automation project at Grupo Fuertes, an agri-food company with operations in multiple countries, we have implemented OpenText for the centralization of processes, unification of the Accounting department and automation of the billing cycle, in order to boost company growth. The results were clear, 70% automation achieved.
At Brait, we've seen this work time and time again. We know which processes have the greatest impact, how to prioritize them, how to implement them without disruptions. Schedule a session of 30 minutes with our team. We'll analyze your specific processes and show you where the real opportunity is.
