AgentHack submission type
Enterprise Agents
Name
Rahul Dasari
Team name
Hustlers
Team members
How many agents do you use
Multiple agents
Industry category in which use case would best fit in (Select up to 2 industries)
Finance
Operations
Complexity level
Advanced
Summary (abstract)
The Agentic Invoice Processing System leverages UiPath’s AI-driven agents to automate manual invoice processing, reducing effort by 75–90%, errors to near-zero, and processing time by 80%. By integrating email monitoring, intelligent data extraction, ERP validation, and exception handling, orchestrated by UiPath Maestro, it ensures scalable, compliant automation for APAC enterprises, freeing finance teams for strategic tasks.
Detailed problem statement
Problem:
In large enterprises, particularly in the finance and operations departments, invoice processing remains a heavily manual and labor-intensive task that is prone to errors, inefficiencies, and significant time delays. The process typically involves multiple repetitive steps: scanning email inboxes for invoice-related communications, downloading and organizing attachments (e.g., PDFs, images), manually extracting key data fields (e.g., invoice number, date, vendor details, amount), validating this data against enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems such as SAP or Oracle, and ensuring compliance with internal policies and regional regulations (e.g., GST in India). These tasks are not only time-consuming but also susceptible to human errors, such as incorrect data entry, missed invoices, or non-compliance with tax regulations, which can lead to financial discrepancies, delayed payments, and strained vendor relationships.
Challenges Addressed:
Manual Effort and Inefficiency: Finance teams spend excessive time on repetitive tasks like email monitoring and data entry, diverting resources from strategic activities such as financial analysis or vendor negotiations. For example, processing a single invoice can take 30 minutes or more, and enterprises handling thousands of invoices monthly face significant labor costs.
Error-Prone Processes: Manual data extraction and validation often result in errors (e.g., 5% error rate in data entry), leading to incorrect payments, compliance issues, or rework.
Lack of Contextual Understanding: Traditional robotic process automation (RPA) tools lack the ability to handle unstructured data (e.g., varied invoice formats, multilingual documents) or make contextual decisions, causing bottlenecks when invoices deviate from standard templates or contain ambiguities (e.g., missing vendor IDs).
Exception Handling Bottlenecks: Edge cases, such as invoices with missing data or non-compliant formats, require human intervention, further slowing down the process and increasing dependency on manual oversight.
Scalability and Compliance Issues: Enterprises operating in diverse regions like APAC face challenges in scaling invoice processing to handle multiple languages, formats, and regional regulations (e.g., GST, VAT), which basic automation tools struggle to address.
Lack of Continuous Improvement: Current systems do not learn from past actions or adapt to new invoice patterns, vendor behaviors, or process inefficiencies, limiting long-term optimization.
Why It Matters:
These challenges result in significant operational inefficiencies, increased costs, and reduced agility for finance teams. For instance, a high error rate can lead to financial losses or audits, while slow processing delays vendor payments, impacting business relationships. In APAC enterprises, where diverse invoice formats and multilingual documents are common, the lack of scalable, intelligent automation hinders the vision of a fully automated enterprise. By keeping finance teams locked in low-value, repetitive tasks, organizations miss opportunities to focus on strategic initiatives, such as financial forecasting or process innovation, ultimately affecting competitiveness and profitability.
Detailed solution
Overview
The Agentic Invoice Processing System automates manual invoice processing using four UiPath-powered agents: Email Monitoring, Data Extraction, Validation, and Exception Handling. Coordinated by UiPath Maestro, the system reduces manual effort by 75–90%, errors to near-zero, and processing time by 80%, with scalability for APAC enterprises.
Components
Email Monitoring Agent:
Tools: Communications Mining™, Integration Service.
Function: Monitors inboxes (Outlook/Gmail), filters invoice-related emails, extracts attachments (PDFs, images).
Outcome: Eliminates manual email scanning, processes 1,000+ emails/day.
Data Extraction Agent:
Tools: Document Understanding™, Clipboard AI™.
Function: Extracts fields (invoice number, date, vendor, amount) from varied formats, trained on 100+ APAC invoices.
Outcome: Reduces data entry time, achieves near-zero errors, outputs JSON (e.g., {“invoice_number”: “INV123”, “date”: “2025-07-07”, “amount”: 5000}).
Validation Agent:
Tools: AI Center, Autopilot™, Integration Service.
Function: Validates data against SAP/Oracle, checks compliance (e.g., GST), flags anomalies (e.g., invoices >$10,000).
Outcome: Ensures compliance, reduces validation time by 80%.
Exception Handling Agent:
Tool: Action Center.
Function: Routes edge cases (e.g., missing data) to human reviewers, uses feedback to retrain models.
Outcome: Minimizes human involvement to <10% of cases.
Orchestration:
Tool: Maestro.
Function: Coordinates agents, prioritizes tasks, balances workloads.
Outcome: Enables scalable, parallel processing.
Continuous Improvement:
Tools: Process Mining, Communications Mining™, AI Center.
Function: Analyzes bottlenecks, detects new patterns, retrains models.
Outcome: Self-optimizing system for APAC markets.
Monitoring and Analytics:
Tools: Orchestrator, Insights, Robots, Assistant.
Function: Manages execution, tracks KPIs (effort, time, errors), provides user interface.
Outcome: Real-time ROI visibility.
Integrations:
ERP: SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics via Integration Service.
External: Azure (AI Center), optional Open AI (NLP).
Compliance: Configurable rules for GST and APAC regulations.
Demo Video
Expected impact of this automation
Overview
The system automates invoice processing, reducing manual effort by 75–90%, errors to near-zero, and processing time by 80%, with significant ROI, compliance, and scalability benefits for APAC enterprises.
Measurable Benefits
ROI:
Savings: $288,000–$345,600/year (labor, error reduction).
Details: Reduces 10 FTEs’ effort (100 to 10–25 hours/month), eliminates $5,000–$10,000/month in error costs.
Metric: 5–7x ROI in first year.
Time Savings:
Reduction: 80% (30 to 6 minutes/invoice).
Details: Processes 1,000 invoices in 100 hours vs. 500 hours manually.
Metric: Saves 400 hours/month for 1,000 invoices.
Manual Task Reduction:
Reduction: 75–90% (100 to 10–25 hours/month).
Details: Automates email scanning, data entry, validation, and 90% of exception handling.
Metric: Saves 375–450 hours/month.
Compliance:
Improvement: 100% adherence to GST/regional regulations.
Details: Validates invoices automatically, provides audit trail, reduces penalties.
Metric: Saves $10,000–$50,000/year in penalties.
Scalability:
Capability: Handles 10,000 invoices/month without additional costs.
Details: Supports multilingual invoices, high volumes via Orchestrator/Maestro.
Metric: 10x volume increase with no labor cost.
Continuous Improvement:
Improvement: 4% accuracy, 10% efficiency gains in 6 months.
Details: Process Mining and Communications Mining™ retrain models.
Metric: Improves from 95% to 99% accuracy.
Strategic Focus:
Shift: 60% more time for strategic tasks.
Details: Frees teams from 80% operational to 80% strategic work.
Metric: Enhances business agility.
Vendor Relations:
Improvement: 90% reduction in late payment penalties.
Details: Timely payments via faster processing.
Metric: Saves $5,000–$20,000/year.
UiPath products used (select up to 4 items)
UiPath AI Center
UiPath Action Center
UiPath Document Understanding™
UiPath Maestro
Automation Applications
SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics
Integration with external technologies
Microsoft Azure,OpenAI
Agentic solution architecture (file size up to 4 MB)
Sample inputs and outputs for solution execution
Emails with Invoice Attachments:
Format: .eml, .msg, or email server (Outlook/Gmail).
Details: Emails with keywords (“Invoice,” “Payment”), PDF/image attachments, multilingual (English, Hindi, Chinese).
Example:
Subject: “Invoice INV123 from ABC Corp”
Body: “Please process invoice INV123 for $5,000 due by 2025-07-15.”
Attachment: invoice_123.pdf
ERP Data:
Format: JSON/CSV via SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics APIs.
Details: Vendor IDs, purchase orders, payment terms.
Example:{
“vendor_id”: “V123”,
“vendor_name”: “ABC Corp”,
“purchase_order”: “PO456”,
“approved_amount”: 5000
}
Compliance Rules:
Format: JSON or AI Center rule sets.
Details: GST rates (5%, 12%, 18%), approval thresholds ($10,000).
Example:{
“rule_id”: “GST_INDIA”,
“tax_rate”: “18%”,
“mandatory_fields”: [“invoice_number”, “date”]
}
Outputs
JSON Data (Extracted Invoice Fields):
Format: JSON.
Details: Invoice number, date, vendor, amount.
Example:{
“invoice_number”: “INV123”,
“date”: “2025-07-07”,
“vendor_name”: “ABC Corp”,
“amount”: 5000
}
Action Center Reports:
Format: CSV/PDF.
Details: Exceptions (e.g., missing data), resolution status.
Example:Invoice Number,Exception,Status
INV123,Missing Vendor ID,Approved
ERP Updates:
Format: JSON/database entries.
Details: Updated payment records, ledger entries.
Example:{
“invoice_number”: “INV123”,
“payment_status”: “Processed”,
“ledger_id”: “GL789”
}