A diversified industrial and energy manufacturer headquartered in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region operates across manufacturing, EPC (engineering, procurement and construction), and services. The group manages thousands of suppliers, multiple legal entities, and a complex procure-to-pay (P2P) landscape in SAP. The Accounts Payable (AP) function processed high volumes of PO and Non-PO invoices, logistics shipments, and down payments across plants and projects.

How the industry works and why it’s hard.

Industrial/EPC supply chains are capital-intensive and schedule-driven. Payments hinge on goods receipts (GR) and service entry sheets (SES). Invoices arrive through mixed channels (paper and email), and approval authority varies by company code, plant, purchasing group, and cost object. Multiple invoice scenarios coexist — PO materials/services, Non-PO, logistics/shipment, and down-payments — each with different gating events and exception types (e.g., duplicates, missing GR/SES, VAT issues). The operating model must reflect all of this without slowing month-end close.

The organisation needed to reduce AP (Accounts Payable) cycle time, boost touchless posting, and maintain auditability across entities. It also wanted readiness for EU e-invoicing rules.

In this supply chain digitalisation case study, the enterprise faced four structural constraints. First, invoice volumes clustered in a long tail of suppliers, with most documents arriving via email or paper. Second, approval limits depended on where spend lived in the organisation (entity, plant, purchasing group) and on cost objects (WBS, cost centre, internal order). Third, four distinct scenarios had to be handled cleanly: PO, Non-PO, Logistics (shipment-based), and Down-Payments. Finally, exceptions had to be visible, routed to the right roles, and resolved quickly.

• Mixed channels: enterprise scanning for paper; unified mailbox for soft invoices; OCR validation.
• Level-based approval logic: company code, plant, purchasing group, purchasing org, WBS/cost centre.
• Scenario diversity with SES/GR gating and logistics variants.
• Exception handling: duplicates, rescan, approval required, VAT/coding checks, RTV (return-to-vendor).

Confidentiality notes:
We preserve anonymity and report portfolio-level deltas only. Artefacts referenced are generic (SAP-integrated invoice automation, workflow, OCR) and drawn from project documents without exposing proprietary identifiers.
The programme was previously managed under an Averroa VIM principle. This case proves the capability and explains how Averroa would implement it now with additional value levers (quality badges, decision logs, a live AP control tower).

AP performance depended on monthly slide packs and manual reconciliations. Invoices languished in shared inboxes; exceptions were fragmented; approvals varied by entity. The result: slow posting, missed discounts, duplicate payment risk, and meeting time spent debating “whose number is right”.

Operational and business impact:

• Cycle time drag: lengthy receipt→posting times and rework across PO/Non-PO/logistics.
• Low touchless rate: manual coding and approvals for routine PO invoices.
• Exceptions everywhere: duplicates, SES/GR missing, VAT and coding errors; unclear ownership and ageing.
• Decision latency: late discovery of issues during month-end; leadership focus on archaeology, not action.
• Audit pressure: trails scattered across email, Excel, and SAP.

Why the urgency?

Waiting was costlier than change. Benchmarks and regulation both moved.

• Benchmark gap: Best-in-Class AP teams process invoices in ~3.1 days vs 17.4 for others and run costs at $2.78 vs $12.88 per invoice. Automation and rules explain the delta. MediusDatoCMS
• AI at work: 75% of knowledge workers already use AI; leaders now expect natural-language summaries and proactive nudges in dashboards. MicrosoftSource
• Regulation: The EU’s VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) was adopted 11 March 2025; Member States can mandate domestic B2B e-invoicing, and Germany phases reception from Jan 2025 with issuance mandates ramping toward 2027–2028.

Touchless, auditable processing across PO, Non-PO, Logistics, and Down-Payments, with a control tower leaders can decide with.

We designed a single operating model that treats each invoice scenario as a first-class flow, aligns approvals with real authority, and routes exceptions to the right team with clear dispositions. Decision support is built on the same truth: a live AP control tower showing freshness/completeness badges, cycle-time ladders, touchless rates, exception heatmaps, and discount capture.

• Channel simplicity: one email gateway for soft invoices; enterprise scan for paper; OCR to extract metadata; validators confirm.
• Scenario clarity: PO, Non-PO, Logistics, Down-Payments with SES/GR gating and distinct queues.
• Approvals that reflect the business: level-based Chart of Authority using company code, plant, purchasing group, purchasing org, and cost objects (WBS/cost centre/internal order).
• Exception playbooks: duplicates, rescan, “approval required”, VAT/coding validations; outcomes include verify, rescan, obsolete, RTV.
• Governance cadence: weekly progress reviews, monthly management meetings, and formal change control with KPI-based status reporting.

We shipped value in three thin slices. Each slice delivered to production with measurable KPIs and a short hypercare window.

• Slice 1 (weeks 0–6): PO invoices (materials/services). Land ingestion and OCR for top-volume suppliers; enable duplicate check; enforce GR/SES gating; present a single approval screen.
• Slice 2 (weeks 6–10): Non-PO with header-level approvals and line coding; add RTV templates; introduce a single inbox with reminders.
• Slice 3 (weeks 10–12): Logistics & Down-Payments (bank guarantee and documents-against-payment options); wire the AP control tower and adoption metrics (DAU/MAU, view-to-action ratio).

We drove noise down and flow up. Early improvements focused on rules that remove waste before any advanced AI.

• Consolidated exception queues; tuned thresholds; increased duplicate-match precision.
• Proactive reminders and ageing reports to reduce waiting time; micro-automation for coders/approvers (derive Vendor from PO; pre-fill VAT/currency; defaults by vendor class).
• Logistics-specific checks: shipment number capture; SES creation checks; route to logistics when SES missing.

We measured the deltas against an eight-week pre-go-live baseline and sought finance sign-off. External benchmarks were used for reasonableness checks.

• Monthly KPI reviews (cycle time, touchless rate, exception rate, discount capture, throughput/FTE).
• Finance validated cost-per-invoice models against Best-in-Class ranges from Ardent Partners.

With stability achieved, we scaled and future-proofed. Adoption and regulatory readiness guided the roadmap.

• Onboarded more suppliers; extended Non-PO to additional cost objects; rolled to new plants/entities.
• ViDA-aligned e-invoicing plan for EU entities; Germany: universal reception from Jan 2025, issuance mandates staged through 2027–2028.

• Partner (Sponsor): Executive alignment, governance cadence, KPI ownership.
• Principal (Programme Lead): Operating model, approval schema, exception playbooks; chairs Value Review Board.
• Senior Consultant (Process & Data): Scenario rules, approvals config, control tower build, UAT/hypercare.
• Consultant (Build & Ops): Ingestion, dashboards/alerts, regression packs, adoption instrumentation.

• Research & Innovation: 3–4-week diagnostic, KPI tree, thin-slice architecture, business case.
• Execution & Delivery: 12-week three-slice build, sprints with demos, cutover/hypercare, runbooks.
• Rescue & Support: Exception stabilisation, OCR tuning, approval hardening, SLA-backed enhancements.

Within six months of the first live slice, the organisation cut median AP cycle time by two-thirds, lifted touchless posting on PO invoices to ~50%, shrank exception rates by over a third, and nearly doubled throughput per AP FTE. Early-payment discounts improved, duplicate payments were eliminated after rule hardening, and SES discipline in logistics/service flows nudged an OTIF proxy upward.

• AP cycle time (receipt→posted): ↓ 68% — from 10.6 to 3.4 days (median).
• Touchless rate (PO): ↑ to 46–52% (from 18%).
• Exception rate: ↓ 37% (duplicates, GR/SES, VAT, coding).
• Cost per invoice: ↓ 54–62%; tracking toward Best-in-Class ranges (context: $2.78 vs $12.88).
• Discount capture: ↑ 2.1× on eligible spend.
• Throughput per AP FTE: ↑ 70–90% (seasonality-adjusted).
• OTIF proxy (impacted lanes): +3.8 pp via earlier SES confirmation in logistics/service POs.

• Design for decisions, not documents. Anchor flows around PO/Non-PO/Logistics/Down-Payments and where risk accumulates.
• Keep approvals level-based. Company code, plant, purchasing group, purchasing org, cost objects; then automate the next approver.
• Exploit baseline rules before AI. Duplicate checks, GR/SES requirements, VAT and coding validations remove most waste early.
• Badge trust in the UI. Freshness/completeness badges and lineage snapshots speed sign-off.
• Adoption is a KPI. Track DAU/MAU, view-to-action, and work ageing; coach leaders to intervene on queues.
• Thin slices win. Land a live slice in 4–6 weeks; expand by scenario, not by software component.
• Audit loves decision logs. Time-stamped approvals and RTV reason codes reduce back-and-forth.
• Regulatory horizon matters. ViDA/Germany timelines should shape capture, archives, and format choices.

• Sustain: Quarterly rulebook tune-ups; monthly value forums; OCR learning for top-N suppliers; data SLAs to keep freshness visible.
• Expand: Roll to remaining entities; connect to national e-invoicing networks; extend the control tower with working-capital KPIs (DPO, discount yield).
• Handover: Role-based SOPs; regression packs; SLAs for enhancements; governance via DRIVE™ Value Review Board.

• Ardent Partners — AP Metrics that Matter 2025 (processing time and cost). MediusDatoCMS
• European Commission — Adoption of ViDA (11 Mar 2025). Taxation and Customs Union
• European Commission (Digital Building Blocks) — Germany B2B e-invoicing timeline. European Commission
• Microsoft Work Trend Index 2024 — AI at Work Is Here (75% using AI). Microsoft
• OpenText — Vendor Invoice Management for SAP (overview). OpenText
• Project artefacts — charter, FDD, end-to-end flows (Confidential).