AI invoice processing: How to automate invoices and save hours

Collecting data from invoices is important, but it’s also boring and slow.

So how do you fix this without hiring more staff or wasting hours on manual entry?

After deploying AI invoice automation with SMEs, we’ve seen workloads drop from 2 full days per week to about 2 hours.

This post shows how AI invoice processing works, why it’s a fast win, and how to get ROI in weeks, not years.

Why manual invoice processing holds you back

Invoices pile up. Someone opens emails, downloads PDFs, types numbers into a sheet, checks totals, and files them. It’s slow. It’s easy to mess up. It costs money.

For SMEs, this kills focus. Those hours could go to customers, product, or sales.

So why not automate it?

How AI invoice processing works

Instead of people doing every step, AI does the heavy lifting. Humans check the edge cases.

Simple model we use:

AI invoice automation in a nutshell:

• Invoices arrive in a shared inbox

• An AI process runs every hour to detect and classify emails

• If it finds an invoice, it saves the file to Google Drive

• OCR reads the PDF

• The AI extracts key data: supplier, date, total, due date, PO

• Rules validate the data: totals, VAT, currency, duplicates

• The results go into Google Sheets or your ERP

• Exceptions get flagged to a human

What used to take days is done in minutes, with fewer mistakes.

What to extract

Start small. Get the basics right.

• Vendor name

• Invoice number

• Issue date and due date

• Currency and total amount

• Tax, VAT, and line-item totals

• PO number or project code

You can add more fields later.

Beyond AI invoice automation

The same approach works for purchase orders, expense reports, delivery notes, payroll docs, and HR forms.

At BRACAI, we put automation first. By automating the back office, SMEs can scale faster without adding headcount and unlock growth with the same resources.

👉 Want to turn 2 days of manual work into 2 hours? Send us an email today.