How Serrala is Accelerating AP with GenAI

Artificial Intelligence, specifically Generative AI, has become one of the most buzzed about topics in the technology space in recent years. However, it can be difficult for businesses to separate hype from reality.

Organizations are always keen to adopt emerging technologies that can bolster operations and help them to meet their business goals. However, some organizations have indicated they aren’t yet ready to apply AI in their operations simply because they do not understand how it will be effective. SAPinsider’s recent SAP S/4HANA Finance State of the Market 2024 benchmark research report found that just 9% of SAP organizations are using AI-based financial applications.

GenAI in AP Functions

GenAI can have a significant impact on several important financial workflows – particularly Accounts Payable (AP). To help companies understand the use cases where GenAI can be most effective, the AP automation experts at Serrala laid out a few common use cases where SAP organizations can deploy GenAI functionality to improve efficiency and accuracy:

AI-powered AP Insights – GenAI can provide AP users with deep insights that humans may otherwise miss. For example, by analyzing vendor invoices and payment history, it can identify sets of high priority or high value invoices and then optimize the payment scheduling for those invoices to help meet corporate cash flow objectives. GenAI can also be used to identify new opportunities to negotiate better purchasing terms with suppliers in the future. These types of GenAI insights will help AP teams strategically contribute to corporate initiatives to control spend, manage cash flows and maintain a healthy supply chain.

Fraud prevention strategies – Organizations can use GenAI to detect possibly fraudulent invoices and then suggest new methods of fraud prevention. As invoice fraud is the most common type of accounting fraud, GenAI will be an important tool in every organization’s ongoing fight against fraud.

Improved supplier relations – Chatbots, powered by GenAI, can be used to quickly answer supplier queries and generally improve the supplier experience working with the AP department. Chatbots will reduce the amount of time and effort AP teams spend answering basic questions, such as when my invoice will get paid. This will allow AP to work closely with suppliers on other more complex and valuable interactions.

Faster dispute management – GenAI can be used to help AP teams determine the root cause for an invoice dispute and its history. By exploring documents and other data sources, GenAI technology can locate and even summarize any issues that appear within invoices as well as any associated email or chat communications. GenAI’s ability to quickly distill the key issues from a large set of communications, can potentially save AP teams many hours of time-consuming manual work, which will significantly lower the total cost of invoice processing.

To provide users with these GenAI capabilities and more, Serrala offers organizations access to its Alevate AP solution. These GenAI-powered tools can help streamline vital workflows and infuse automation throughout the AP process, minimizing the risk of manual errors and helping users keep pace in a crowded technological landscape.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

While GenAI holds significant promise for financial teams, many are unable to leverage its capabilities due to a perceived lack of a business case or internal resources needed to deploy it. Though these organizations may be asking themselves if they can afford to have a GenAI-powered solution, they should consider if they can afford to go on without one.

Many SAP organizations are now realizing the potential GenAI holds for their financial workflows and are turning to experienced partners like Serrala to help them implement advanced solutions. With options like Alevate AP, users can improve efficiency, enhance intelligence, and ensure that vital accounts payable workflows are executed correctly and on-time.