Exploring Now Assist for Accounts Payable Operations (APO)
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Summary of Exploring Now Assist for Accounts Payable Operations (APO)
Now Assist for Accounts Payable Operations (APO) leverages generative AI to streamline and enhance the efficiency of invoice processing and inquiry management. It empowers AP fulfillers and specialists by automating complex tasks such as invoice summarization, data extraction, purchase order line mapping, inquiry resolution, and email response generation. This results in reduced manual effort, faster case handling, and improved accuracy in Accounts Payable operations.
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Key Features
- Purchase Order Line Mapping: Automatically maps invoice lines to purchase order lines, changing invoice line statuses to prompt manual review and completion. This mapping is governed by configurable APO properties to ensure accuracy.
- Invoice Case Summarization: Generates concise summaries of invoice and inquiry cases by reviewing issue details, actions, statuses, and next steps. Summaries update dynamically and can be posted to work notes for team visibility.
- Invoice Data Extraction: Extracts invoice details from PDFs received via email or supplier portals in multiple languages using GPT-4o, enhancing extraction accuracy and reducing manual processing. Customers can opt for manual review or fully automated workflows.
- Invoice Inquiry Solution Generator: Automates resolution suggestions for inquiry cases by analyzing case data and related records. It classifies inquiries, extracts key details, and supports agents in closing cases efficiently with AI-generated resolution recommendations.
- Relevant Invoice Finder: Uses semantic matching to identify past invoices most relevant to a current invoice, aiding in exception resolution by providing a ranked list based on relevance scores.
- Email Response for Invoice Cases and Tasks: Generates draft email responses by analyzing case context, history, and knowledge articles, improving communication efficiency for AP specialists and agents.
- Sentiment Analysis for Invoice Cases: Assesses the tone of invoice inquiry communications, categorizing sentiment as positive, negative, or neutral to help prioritize cases effectively.
- Accounts Payable Document Classification: Automatically classifies supplier email attachments (invoices, credit memos, supporting documents) with configurable confidence thresholds. Documents are auto-approved or flagged for manual review, facilitating faster and more accurate invoice processing with audit transparency.
Key Outcomes
- Significant reduction in manual effort and errors through AI-driven automation of invoice data extraction, line mapping, and inquiry resolution.
- Improved case management efficiency by providing clear summaries, automated recommendations, and intelligent email response drafting.
- Greater processing accuracy and compliance with configurable controls over document classification and purchase order mapping.
- Enhanced ability to prioritize and address inquiries effectively using sentiment analysis and AI-powered case classification.
- Scalable handling of high volumes of invoices and supporting documents, ensuring audit readiness and operational transparency.
Now Assist for Accounts Payable Operations (APO) provides AP fulfillers with generative AI skills to summarize invoice cases, extract invoice data, map purchase order lines, and generate inquiry resolutions.
Now Assist for APO overview
Using the summarization capability of the Now Assist for APO application, an AP fulfiller can auto-map the invoice lines with purchase order lines, get a concise summary of a case quickly, extract invoice details from email and auto-create an invoice processing case.
Cases can be complex and a case summary may enable an AP fulfiller to provide a more concise summary.
Skills
- The generative AI skills enable an AP fulfiller to extract the details of an invoice case or inquiry case and suggest resolutions.
- The generative AI skills perform the purchase order line-mapping and enable an AP fulfiller to review the mapping results.
- Purchase order line mapping
- Provides AP fulfiller to automatically map the invoice lines with the purchase order lines.
The purchase order line-mapping skill generates the invoice line mapping, changes the invoice line status to review mapping state and provokes the fulfiller to manually review the mapping results. After the fulfiller reviews the mapping results, the invoice line status is changed to mapping complete. The purchase order lines mapped using the Now Assist skill are controlled using the APO properties. For more information on the use of purchase order mapping in workspace, see Set APO properties and Using Playbook in Accounts Payable Operations.
- Invoice case summarization
- The summary skill reviews the issue, actions completed, status, and next steps. An AP fulfiller can refresh the summary as case updates happen and post the summary to work notes.
The invoice case summary displays above the activity stream.
For invoice processing cases, the summary skill also reviews the invoice status and invoice information located in the applicable document.
For inquiry cases, the invoice case summarization skill generates a case summary by checking the short description, description, and tasks that were created for the case.
Fulfiller can customize prompt configuration and prompt optimization using the pre-processor in the Now Assist skill kit (NASK). The skill supports multiple models such as OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Now LLM Service. The configured pre-processor is applied across all supported models in NASK. To customize the prompt instructions, the sn_skill_builder_admin role is mandatory.
- Invoice data extraction
- The Invoice data extraction skill helps in extracting invoice details from PDFs submitted through email or supplier portal. The digitized invoice is processed within Accounts Payable Operations automatically. Invoices are extracted in languages (English, Dutch, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish) supported by GPT-4o.
With the Invoice data extraction skill, customers can achieve higher invoice extraction accuracy by leveraging GPT-4o and significantly reducing manual effort. Customers are provided with the flexibility of turning on the manual review of extraction results or can let invoice be processed through the workflow automatically without manual review.
- Invoice inquiry solution generator
- The Invoice inquiry solution generator skill identifies, extracts the invoice inquiry details from the invoice data and related records. Automates the resolution for invoice inquiry cases.
- Relevant invoice finder
- The Relevant invoice finder skill identifies the historically processed invoices that are most relevant to a given invoice using semantic matching.
The skill compares the current invoice and its line descriptions with previously processed invoices along with its line descriptions, and generates a relevance score from 0 through 1 for each item. These invoices are then returned in a ranked list, ordered by relevance.
The Recommend invoice owner AI agent uses this match score to suggest a resolution plan for Missing or invalid business owner exceptions.
- Email response for invoice case
- The Email response for invoice case skill generates responses for email by analyzing invoice case contexts, activity, work notes, invoice details, approvals, payments, fulfiller's response in the past and knowledge base
articles. The skill enables AP specialists and agents to automatically draft and manage responses to invoice-related inquiries. It also leverages the templates in drafting email responses.
The skill reduces time spent by AP specialists and agents in manually drafting responses and improves productivity.
- Email response for invoice task
- The Email response for invoice task skill generates responses for email by analyzing invoice case contexts, activity, work notes, invoice details, approvals, payments, fulfiller's response in the past and knowledge base
articles. The skill enables AP specialists and agents to automatically draft and manage responses to invoice-related inquiries. It also leverages the templates in drafting email responses.
The skill reduces time spent by AP specialists and agents in manually drafting responses and improves productivity.
- Sentiment analysis for invoice case
- The Sentiment analysis for invoice inquiry case skill enables fulfiller to analyze and prioritize the invoice inquiry cases based on the response tone. The tone is categorized as positive, negative, or neutral. The sentiment score helps fulfiller to understand the urgency and emotional weight of the invoice inquiry case.
- Accounts payable document classification
- The Accounts payable document classification skill automatically identifies and categorizes supplier sent email attachments as invoice, credit memo, and supporting documents. The system supports configurable confidence thresholds and an AI solution with confidence score. Documents are auto-approved if the AI-confidence score is greater than the configured threshold, and auto-approval is enabled in the APO properties page. AP specialist manually reviews the document if the AI confidence score is lesser than the configured threshold. After the documents are successfully categorized, the invoice data extraction skill triggers the extraction of invoices.