A $38M industrial distributor eliminated a full-time equivalent of AP work by automating vendor invoice processing in Epicor P21. AI-powered document extraction now handles 85% of invoices without manual entry, reclaiming 40 hours per week.

The Challenge

This distributor ran Epicor P21 alongside a CRM, phone system, and Microsoft 365 -- none of which talked to each other. Customer data lived in three places and was rarely consistent. Sales reps toggled between systems to check order history. Phone calls started without context.

But the biggest operational bottleneck was accounts payable. The AP team received 150-200 vendor invoices per week as PDF email attachments. Each one had to be manually opened, matched to a PO, and keyed into P21 as a voucher -- 3-5 minutes per invoice, 15-20 hours per week of pure data entry.

The consequences were predictable: a growing backlog, missed early payment discounts, vendor calls about payment status, and errors from manual entry -- wrong amounts, wrong GL codes, invoices matched to the wrong PO.

The Solution

Phase 1: System Integration

We connected P21 to WPCRM, 8x8, and Microsoft 365 so customer data, order history, and communications flowed between systems automatically. Sales reps got a complete customer view in CRM. Inbound calls triggered a screen pop with account details. Emails linked to customer records with a single click.

Phase 2: AI-Powered Invoice Automation

We built a custom invoice ingestion workflow using Microsoft Power Automate and AI document processing. When a vendor invoice arrives via email, the system automatically:

• Extracts the PDF and reads vendor name, invoice number, PO number, line items, quantities, and amounts
• Validates everything against P21 -- vendor exists, PO is valid, line items match, prices within tolerance
• Creates a voucher in P21 with all line items populated and the source PDF attached
• Flags anything that does not match for manual review with a clear explanation of the discrepancy

The client controls variance thresholds and vendor-specific rules. They started conservative and gradually expanded automation as accuracy proved out.

Implementation

Weeks 1-6: WPCRM, 8x8, and M365 integrations deployed in parallel. Sales team fully operational on connected systems within six weeks.

Weeks 7-10: Invoice automation in "shadow mode" -- the system processed invoices and created draft vouchers while AP continued manual review. This tuned extraction accuracy to 95%+.

Weeks 11-12: Switched to auto-post with notification. Clean invoices create vouchers automatically. AP reviews a daily summary and handles the exception queue.

The Results