AI Agents

AI Agents for AP: Turn Manual Tasks into Autonomous Controls

Most finance teams are still chasing invoices through email threads and spreadsheets, but AI agents can transform your entire AP workflow into an autonomous control system that prevents fraud, eliminates bottlenecks, and cuts processing costs by 81%

June 30, 2025

AI Agents for AP: Turn Manual Tasks into Autonomous Controls

Accounts payable isn’t just a back-office task—it’s where your company’s cash leaves the building. Yet in most organizations, it’s still handled with fragmented tools and human follow-up. Finance leaders are chasing vendor invoices through email threads, manually tagging GL codes, and hoping nothing slips through before payments are sent out. It's a fragile process operating in a high-stakes environment.

And that’s a problem—because the stakes are rising. CFOs are expected to manage tighter cash cycles, reduce exposure to fraud, and keep up with increasing compliance demands. But the systems meant to support them haven’t evolved. While invoice capture has seen some automation, the broader AP lifecycle—encompassing approval routing, vendor validation, and payment scheduling—remains largely manual. Only 10% of businesses have fully automated their AP processes, according to CPA Practice Advisor. That means 9 out of 10 companies are still relying on people, not systems, to catch exceptions, chase approvals, and prevent errors.

This isn’t about working harder. It’s about rethinking how work gets done. AI agents offer a fundamentally different approach: not another dashboard, not another rule-based flow, but an autonomous teammate that handles AP execution end-to-end. From ingesting invoices to routing exceptions to preparing payments, agents add control where it matters most, without adding complexity.

The future of AP isn’t more portals. It’s precision, speed, and oversight, powered by agents that know your business and act accordingly.

The Accounts Payable Crisis: Where Manual Processes Break Down

AP is one of the most essential—and most fragile—parts of the finance stack. On paper, it seems simple: receive an invoice, route it for approval, and make the payment. But in practice, the process is stitched together with spreadsheets, emails, and siloed systems. The result is a workflow that’s slow, opaque, and vulnerable.

Approval Delays are a top pain point. Most teams still manage approvals via email threads and shared folders, with no single source of truth. Missed handoffs lead to delayed payments and untraceable approvals, introducing both friction and audit risk.

Fraud Risk is growing fast. AP has become a prime target, with phishing attacks and vendor details changes creating major exposure. In 2024, 79% of organizations were victims of payment fraud attacks or attempts. Manual processes leave teams chasing verification by spreadsheet and gut check, hoping to catch errors before money moves.

Invoice Errors only compound the exposure. According to the Institute of Finance and Management, nearly 40% of invoices contain errors, ranging from missing codes to incorrect amounts. These issues cascade through the approval and payment cycle, creating delays, exceptions, and rework.

Exception Processing and Manual Entry are also significant drags on efficiency. A recent NetSuite survey found that 22% of finance professionals cite delays from invoice exceptions as their top AP challenge, while 21% say too much time is spent on manual data entry. These aren’t edge cases—they represent systemic friction that diverts time away from higher-value activities, such as cash planning or vendor management.

Missed Payment Optimization adds another layer of cost. When approvals stall, early payment discounts slip through the cracks. When teams pay too early, they unnecessarily tie up working capital. But without the proper tooling, it's nearly impossible to consistently time payments to strike the right balance.

These aren’t people problems—they’re architecture problems. Legacy systems excel at logging activity but struggle with executing workflows. They track tasks, not outcomes. AI agents change that. Instead of passively recording each step, they actively manage the workflow by routing approvals, verifying details, escalating exceptions, and triggering payments when specific conditions are met. They turn AP from a manual checklist into an innovative, self-correcting control system.

Graphic showing average Days Payable Outstanding (DPO) by industry, based on data from the JP Morgan Working Capital Index 2024. The DPO values are: Manufacturing – 79 days, Energy – 70 days, Industrials – 65 days, and Tech, Media, and Telecom – 49 days.

The impact is evident in industry benchmarks. According to JPMorgan’s 2024 Working Capital Index, Days Payable Outstanding (DPO) varies widely, ranging from 49 days in tech, media, and telecom to 79 days in manufacturing. These benchmarks reflect more than payment habits—they reveal how effectively a business manages cash, risk, and vendor relationships. AI agents provide AP teams with the tools to move those levers with precision, leveraging automation to strike the right balance between liquidity and reliability.

Want to see how this plays out beyond AP? Read our post on AI Agents for Accounting to learn how teams are using agents to close continuously—with less manual work across the board.

What Are AI Agents for Accounts Payable?

AI agents aren’t just another automation tool. They’re autonomous software teammates that sit on top of your existing finance stack—ERP, email, Slack, procurement systems—and handle the actual work of AP. Not just the intake, but the entire execution chain: reading invoices, tagging GL codes, routing approvals, flagging anomalies, and preparing payment files that are ready to review and send.

This isn’t OCR with a prettier interface. OCR gets data into the system. Agents decide what to do with it.

What makes them different is how they operate. AI agents don’t rely on rigid logic trees or hardcoded workflows. They’re built to understand financial data structures—such as vendor IDs, chart of accounts, PO rules, and approval thresholds—and act accordingly. They learn from your historical patterns, spot deviations, and surface insights in real time. If a vendor’s bank account suddenly changes, or an invoice arrives without a matching PO, the agent doesn’t just flag it—it explains the issue and recommends next steps.

And unlike legacy automation platforms, AI agents don’t require you to rearchitect your tech stack. They integrate with the tools you already use, eliminating the need for context switching and extra portals. You can assign, review, and approve tasks directly inside your ERP or from a Slack message. You stay in control, but the heavy lifting happens behind the scenes.

Even more critical, agents offer real-time visibility into your AP status—not just what's sitting in a queue, but why it’s stalled, what’s at risk, and what needs your attention. They don’t just tell you there’s a backlog—they help you clear it. And in the process, they make AP faster, more accurate, and dramatically more secure.

This is what execution automation looks like: intelligent, embedded, and built for the way finance works.

Beyond Basic Automation Tools

Feature	Manual AP	AP Tools	AI Agents
GL Coding	Manual, error-prone	Template-based	Contextual + adaptive based on invoice content
Vendor Validation	Spreadsheet checks	Rules-based filters	Real-time anomaly detection when prompted
Invoice Analysis	Manual review	Predefined flags	Pattern-based insights
Data Extraction	Manual entry from PDFs	OCR with field mapping	Intelligent parsing with contextual tagging
Exception Handling	Reactive and ad hoc	Rule-triggering alerts	On-demand reviews with suggested next steps
Audit Trail	Disconnected documentation	Partial logs	Full, step-by-step traceability
Spend Insights	Periodic manual reports	Basic reporting dashboards	Dynamic summaries of trends and outliers upon request

What sets AI agents apart isn’t just better outputs—it’s smarter orchestration. While AP tools may surface alerts or generate reports, agents respond with action. They don’t wait for rules to be triggered; they recognize context in real time. When a vendor’s payment terms deviate from policy, the agent flags it and proposes the correction. When a high-value invoice sits idle, the agent doesn’t just report the stall—it tracks down the approver and suggests reassignment.

This turns every manual checkpoint into an autonomous control. Where AP tools provide structure, agents deliver responsiveness. They act as embedded operators, continuously optimizing workflows based on live data—not static templates. The outcome isn’t just efficiency. It’s AP that scales with the business—without adding complexity or headcount.

AI Agent Prompts for AP Workflows

AI agents don’t just help you process invoices faster—they help you manage AP with clarity. Below are common AP tasks that agents can handle when prompted, each tied to a specific operational need.

Invoice Compliance and Coding

Show me all invoices from new vendors this month and highlight any that are missing PO numbers or GL codes.

→ The agent scans your invoice intake for entries that lack expected metadata—like missing purchase order references or undefined GL coding. It flags the incomplete records, surfaces them in a clean table, and lets you drill into each exception. You get immediate clarity on where issues are—and how to fix them—without digging through files or chasing documentation.

Approval Routing and Bottlenecks

List all pending invoices over $10,000 and who they’re currently waiting on for approval.

→ The agent queries your ERP or approval system to pull all high-value invoices still in flight. It returns the invoice amount, approver name, how long it’s been pending, and where the bottlenecks are. You don’t need to chase status updates or assemble this from scratch—it’s ready in one place, with the ability to nudge or reassign based on what you see.

Payment Readiness and Exception Management

“Which invoices are scheduled for payment next week but haven’t been approved yet?”

→ The agent cross-references your scheduled payment run against the approval log and flags any invoices that aren’t yet cleared. It gives you a heads-up before cutoff, so you can escalate or delay selectively. This minimizes last-minute fire drills and helps you avoid accidental early payments or missed deadlines.

Vendor Audit and Risk Review

Identify any vendors added in the last 60 days who’ve submitted more than 3 invoices, and flag if their payment terms differ from our standard.

→ The agent filters your vendor master data to isolate new entries, tracks invoice volume, and checks for mismatched terms against policy. It surfaces vendors who may need review—either due to unexpected activity or inconsistent payment structures—giving your team a clear list to validate or escalate.

GL Variance Review by Vendor

Show me vendors with spend this month that’s more than 20% above their average over the past three months, broken out by GL code.

→ The agent analyzes historical invoice data, calculates vendor averages, and highlights those whose current month’s spend deviates materially. It organizes this by GL category, helping you understand where spend is trending unusually—and which vendors may need a closer look.

With AI agents in your AP workflow, every exception, escalation, and approval becomes visible and actionable. The result is a more secure, predictable, and efficient payables process—where the system handles the busywork and your team stays focused on what matters.

Curious what it takes to go live? Read our 10-Minute Implementation Guide to see how AP teams are deploying agents without disrupting existing systems.

Accounts Payable Automation ROI

When AP runs on AI agents, it stops being the source of bottlenecks and becomes the foundation for operational control. The shift isn’t just about getting faster—it’s about driving better outcomes across accuracy, compliance, and cost. According to Forbes, companies using AP automation report 81% lower processing costs and 73% faster cycle times. That’s not just operational efficiency—it’s a structural advantage.

With agents executing the routine work, your finance team can shift focus from chasing approvals to managing risk and optimizing cash. Early payment discounts don’t get missed. Duplicate or out-of-policy payments get flagged before they go out. And audit prep starts itself, not two days before the deadline.

In a world where execution speed is a competitive edge—and compliance risk carries real cost—AI agents give CFOs a control system they can scale with. Not just to keep the wheels turning, but to run AP as it should be: clean, compliant, and aligned with the broader financial strategy.

Concourse AI Agents

Concourse builds AI agents designed specifically for corporate finance teams—so your AP workflows aren’t just faster, they’re smarter. Our agents plug into your existing ERP and tools to handle invoice intake, GL coding, approval routing, vendor validation, and payment prep with speed and precision. No more spreadsheets, no more follow-up loops—just clean execution and clear insight.

Setup takes less than 15 minutes. There’s no system migration, no retraining, and no disruption. You get immediate visibility into your AP pipeline and the power to act on it in real time.

Join the waitlist or email us at hello@concourse.co

Frequently Asked Questions About AI Agents for AP

What are AI agents for accounts payable and how do they work?

AI agents for AP are autonomous software tools that manage the entire AP lifecycle—from invoice intake to payment prep. Unlike rule-based systems, Concourse’s agents understand your company’s data, surface GL codes missing tags, route approvals, validate vendors, and flag anomalies—all without manual follow-up.

How can Concourse AI agents reduce approval delays in AP workflows?

Concourse AI agents identify bottlenecks in real time and route approvals to the right stakeholders. They can flag high-value invoices sitting idle and suggest reassignment, cutting down approval cycles and avoiding late payments.

What’s the difference between AP automation tools and Concourse AI agents?

Most AP tools automate tasks based on static rules. Concourse AI agents go further by orchestrating workflows autonomously. They analyze context, flag issues, and act on exceptions—turning AP into a self-correcting control system.

Can Concourse AI agents help prevent accounts payable fraud?

Yes. Concourse agents detect unusual vendor behavior, flag bank account changes, and validate new vendors in real time. This proactive oversight helps reduce fraud exposure without relying solely on manual checks.

How do Concourse AI agents improve invoice accuracy?

Concourse agents use intelligent parsing and historical data to highlight invoices with incorrect GL codes and identify missing metadata. They surface exceptions instantly, reducing manual rework and costly delays.

What systems does Concourse integrate with for AP automation?

Concourse integrates with major ERPs, CRMs, billing systems, and data warehouses. There's no need for system migration—agents plug into your existing stack and start working within 15 minutes.

How do Concourse agents support payment timing and optimization?

Concourse agents monitor approval and payment status in real time. They alert you when an invoice scheduled for payment is still pending approval, helping you avoid missed discounts or premature payments.

What are the key benefits of using AI agents over traditional AP workflows?

AI agents, like those from Concourse, eliminate manual entry, reduce errors, accelerate approvals, and improve visibility. They free finance teams from chasing paperwork and enable better cash management and compliance.

How do Concourse AI agents handle exception processing in AP?

When exceptions occur—like unmatched POs or unusual invoice amounts—Concourse agents flag the issue, explain the root cause, and suggest resolution steps. They streamline exception handling with minimal manual effort.

Is Concourse a good fit for finance teams looking to scale AP without adding complexity?

Yes. Concourse is designed for finance teams that want to scale AP operations without increasing headcount or system sprawl. Its AI agents handle routine AP tasks autonomously, giving teams better control, faster execution, and more time for strategic work—with minimal setup and no retraining required.