A few words about Pyxis
Pyxis was born from a desire to transform the world of work so that it serves both organizational performance and individual fulfillment. Since the early 2000s, we have been offering progressive alternatives to traditional methods, notably through agility.
Our mission is to create exemplary work environments by helping companies balance the constant tensions between customer needs, employee expectations, the pursuit of excellence, and profitability. Through our software solutions (Done Technologies), our training, and our coaching (Pyxis Doceo), we strive to make work once again a source of personal achievement and meaningful contribution, while addressing today’s complex challenges.
https://www.pyxiscanada.com/en/
The Problems Encountered
Managing accounting for a small company like Pyxis involves a multitude of micro-tasks that precede actual accounting work. The entire accounts payable process relies on a single person and generates considerable “work about work.”
From invoice collection and classification, approval workflows, error detection, to the final accounting entries, the time invested is disproportionate to the real added value created.
In short:
- Energy that could be invested in higher-value tasks.
- Numerous small, manual, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks.
- Manual processing that can lead to errors.
The Challenges
The main challenges first concern the recognition of received invoices. Supplier invoices are all different and sometimes contain unstructured information. We therefore needed to use AI in addition to robust OCR technologies.
Next, invoices must be matched to existing suppliers in our accounting software, and the appropriate entries performed according to our business rules. Supplier invoices had to be posted using the API of our accounting software (NetSuite).
In summary:
- Tasks require special attention since invoice formats, information, and payment processing vary from one supplier to another.
- Not easy to automate.
The Solution
We wanted an automated solution using an AI model that could learn through use and did not require too many lines of code, since it had to be able to evolve quickly and according to needs. We turned to Microsoft solutions that met our needs exactly.
We used Power Automate to set up Automated Flows for invoice processing (receipt and classification) as well as the approval workflow. Invoice processing is carried out through a custom AI document recognition model using both OCR and AI. The model was trained on several collections of existing invoices.
Finally, we used Microsoft Power Apps technology for the interfaces allowing human intervention before sending supplier invoices to NetSuite using the NetSuite REST API.
Approach That Led to the Success of the Project
The team adopted a step-by-step development approach, prioritizing first the resolution of critical and high-risk elements.
- The ability to automatically process invoices received by email.
- Integration with NetSuite’s REST API using recommended technologies.
Once these technical foundations were validated and stabilized, the team progressively automated each step of the business process, up to the final posting in NetSuite.
