How to Automate Your Invoices: The Complete Guide to Invoice Automation for Growing Businesses

Introduction

Manual invoicing is tedious, error-prone, and a drain on your finance team’s productivity. In 2025, invoice automation isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s essential for scaling operations, reducing errors, and freeing up cash flow. According to industry data, best-in-class organizations automate up to 81% of their invoice processing workflows, achieving 3x faster cycle times and up to 60% lower processing costs.

This guide walks you through exactly how to implement invoice automation—from choosing the right tools to mapping your invoice workflow automation and avoiding common pitfalls.

What Is Invoice Automation?

Invoice automation uses software to capture, process, route, and pay invoices with minimal manual work. Modern systems leverage OCR, AI, and invoice workflow automation to:

Extract invoice data automatically
Route invoices for approval
Match invoices to purchase orders (PO matching)
Schedule payments and update accounting records

The goal: replace slow, error-prone manual steps with a seamless invoice processing automation workflow.

Why Automate Your Invoice Workflow?

Reduce Errors: Manual entry causes up to 20% of all invoice exceptions.
Faster Processing: Automated workflows cut invoice approval times from weeks to days—or even hours.
Better Cash Flow: Early-pay discounts and on-time payments become the norm.
Audit & Compliance: Digital trails make audits painless.
Scalability: Grow your business without hiring more AP staff.

Consider this: best-in-class AP teams process invoices in just 3.1 days—far ahead of the 17.4 day average—while reducing per-invoice costs by nearly 79% (just $2.78 vs $12.88 per invoice). They also manage nearly half of their invoices completely touchless (49.2%) and report a much lower exception rate (9% vs 22%).
Meanwhile, the average AP organization still takes 9.2 days to process an invoice, with a 14% exception rate, and only about 32.6% of invoices pass through fully automated workflows.

Step 1: Map Your Invoice Workflow

Before you automate, document your current invoice workflow:

Invoice Capture: How do you receive invoices? (Email, mail, EDI, portal)
Data Entry: Who enters or validates the data?
Approval: Who needs to sign off, and how?
Matching: Is there a PO or contract to match?
Payment: How are invoices scheduled and paid?
Archiving: How are records stored for future reference?

Tip: Use a simple flowchart or list to identify pain points and bottlenecks.

Step 2: Choose an Invoice Automation Solution

Your options depend on your business size, AP complexity, and budget. Consider:

Accounting platform built-ins: QuickBooks, Xero, Zoho Books offer basic automation.
Dedicated invoice automation software: Tipalti, Rossum, Stampli, Bill.com—ideal for accounts payable invoice workflow automation at scale.
Workflow automation tools: Zapier, Make, or custom scripts to connect your CRM, email, and accounting systems.

What to look for:

Automated data extraction (OCR/AI)
Approval routing & customizable workflows
PO/invoice/receipt matching
Integration with your accounting or ERP
Compliance features (audit trails, e-signatures)
Easy onboarding and user management

Step 3: Automate Invoice Capture & Data Entry

Use automation to ingest invoices from multiple channels: AP inbox, vendor portal, EDI, or scan-to-cloud.
OCR and AI tools extract key data (vendor, invoice #, amounts, dates).
Data is auto-validated for duplicates or missing fields.

Tools: Rossum, Docparser, QuickBooks Online Advanced, or native AP features in your platform.

Step 4: Set Up Automated Invoice Approval Workflows

Define rules for routing invoices based on amount, department, or project.
Set up multi-level approvals as needed.
Approvers are notified automatically (email, Slack, or within the app).
All actions are tracked and logged for compliance.

Tip: Map your current approval hierarchies. Automation should mirror your process, not force a radical change.

Step 5: Automate Payment Scheduling & Recording

Once approved, invoices are auto-scheduled for payment—on the due date or to capture early-pay discounts.
Payments can be made via ACH, check, virtual card, etc., and are automatically reconciled in your accounting system.
Payment status updates vendors and keeps records up to date.

Tools: Tipalti, Bill.com, Stripe, QuickBooks Payments.

If you’re interested, Read about workflow automations

Step 6: Monitor, Optimize, and Maintain Your Workflow

Set up dashboards to track KPIs: cycle time, exceptions, discounts captured, etc.
Regularly review approval bottlenecks and vendor issues.
Keep audit logs and exportable reports for compliance.

Common Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)

Forgetting change management: Train your team before launch.
Automating broken processes: Clean up your workflow before automating.
Not setting exceptions: Always allow manual override for complex invoices.
Neglecting integrations: Ensure your solution connects with CRM, ERP, and banking tools.

Conclusion

Invoice automation doesn’t just save time—it transforms your AP department from a cost center to a strategic driver for your business. By following these steps, you’ll eliminate manual work, reduce errors, and set your company up for scale and growth.