Each month, monetary groups race towards time – reconciliations, approvals, and experiences! The month-end shut can usually really feel like Groundhog Day, with groups working extra time to course of a whole bunch of invoices, match numerous transactions, and catch any uncommon entries earlier than they change into issues.
At present’s companies cannot afford to function in month-to-month cycles anymore.
That is why Sage Intacct, one of many main cloud monetary administration methods, has been incorporating AI options into their platform. With additions like Sage Copilot and GL Outlier Assistant, the corporate hopes to assist finance groups break away from the month-to-month shut entice and transfer towards steady, real-time monetary administration.
On this information, I’ll take you thru Sage’s totally different AI options and how one can develop Sage’s AI capabilities.
Sage Intacct AI: Native options defined
The way forward for accounting is not about sooner month-to-month closes. The main focus is regularly shifting to eliminating closing cycles. At the least this has been the driving drive behind Sage’s current updates.
The purpose is to have AI continually monitor your monetary knowledge, catching points earlier than they change into issues and automating routine duties in real-time. Extra of steady accounting quite than periodic sprints.
Let me stroll you thru Sage’s native AI options:
1. GL Outlier Assistant
It’s an AI-powered system that displays transactions in your basic ledger for anomalies and potential errors. The thought is to forestall errors from impacting monetary statements by catching them at entry, quite than throughout month-end reconciliation.
The way it works:
- Evaluations transactions towards historic patterns
- Makes use of customizable thresholds primarily based on enterprise guidelines
- Routes suspicious entries again to those that submitted it
- Learns from corrections to enhance accuracy
For instance, in case you mistakenly enter a month-to-month provide cost of $500 as $5,000, the system flags it instantly for correction, stopping downstream reconciliation points.
2. Sage Copilot
A few of you’ll have used Microsoft’s Copilot or no less than seen it. Nicely, now Sage too has a Copilot. It’s principally an AI assistant that automates monetary evaluation, reporting, and routine duties. It hopes to cut back time spent on handbook monetary evaluation and report creation.
You need to use it to:
- Evaluate budgeted versus precise figures in real-time
- Get fast solutions to monetary queries by way of conversational search
- Streamline month-end shut processes
- Automate approval workflows and reconciliations
Say you could examine price range variances for this quarter. Now you may merely ask Sage Copilot to provide the variations between budgeted and precise figures. You’ll be able to go a step additional and ask the place the numerous variances are. It can show you how to drill down into particular transactions.
3. AP invoice automation
That is Sage’s native resolution for dealing with invoices. It goals to cut back the time your staff spends on handbook knowledge entry and bill processing.
The way it works:
- Add payments instantly or ahead them to a devoted electronic mail tackle
- System creates draft payments utilizing AI to extract bill knowledge
- Matches info towards your chart of accounts
- Routes payments by way of your approval workflow
- Posts authorized payments robotically to your GL
For instance, while you obtain an bill by way of electronic mail, you may ahead it to your devoted Sage electronic mail tackle. The system reads the bill, creates a draft invoice with the seller particulars, quantity, and line gadgets already stuffed in. You simply have to evaluation the main points and approve.
Now these native AI options from Sage Intacct might show you how to take first steps towards steady accounting. Nonetheless, it’s possible you’ll quickly discover out that you simply want extra complete automation. They work effectively for primary bill processing and anomaly detection, however dealing with advanced AP workflows, managing a number of enter sources, or coping with diverse doc codecs usually requires further capabilities.
That is the place integration options like Nanonets are available in. Let me present you how one can develop Sage’s AI capabilities to deal with extra advanced monetary workflows.
[Image source: Sage’s official website]
The right way to develop Sage’s AI capabilities
Nanonets is an Clever Doc Processing platform that integrates instantly with Sage Intacct. Whereas Sage’s native options deal with primary automation, Nanonets takes it additional by processing any sort of economic doc and establishing automated workflows.
Let me present you ways Nanonets AI might help develop your automation capabilities:
1. Automated doc import
The primary problem in any AP course of is doc consumption. Nanonets presents many add choices, permitting you to robotically course of and add extracted knowledge to Sage Intacct.
- Robotically captures invoices from electronic mail inboxes
- Screens particular folders in Google Drive, Dropbox, or your inner methods
- Accepts any doc format — PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, scanned paperwork, and handwritten paperwork
- Handles a number of doc varieties — invoices, buy orders, receipts, packing slips
You’ll be able to even use API integrations to robotically feed paperwork out of your current methods instantly into the processing workflow. This ensures all monetary paperwork are captured and processed constantly, no matter their supply or format.
2. Clever knowledge extraction and processing
As soon as paperwork are within the system, the subsequent step is knowledge extraction. That is the place Nanonets’ superior AI-OCR capabilities come into play.
You get to decide on between totally different AI fashions primarily based in your wants:
- Zero-shot fashions that work instantly with out coaching
- On the spot Studying fashions that adapt to your corrections in real-time
- Pre-built fashions for traditional paperwork like invoices
- Customized fashions for distinctive doc varieties or particular necessities
You’ll be able to customise how the AI reads your paperwork by offering clear descriptions for every area. For instance, as a substitute of merely labeling a area as “invoice_number”, you may specify “A novel alphanumeric identifier positioned on the prime proper, beginning with ‘INV-‘ adopted by 8 digits.”
The system presents refined knowledge extraction:
- Extracts knowledge from any doc with excessive accuracy, no matter format or construction
- Processes each single-value fields (like bill numbers) and repeating knowledge (like line gadgets)
- Acknowledges and matches vendor particulars together with your Sage information robotically
- Learns from person corrections to repeatedly enhance accuracy
- Validates extracted knowledge towards predefined guidelines and flags discrepancies
Within the above GIF, you may see how the AI immediately extracts customary fields and matches vendor names towards your Sage vendor record. You additionally get a dropdown to confirm or regulate matches when wanted.
For line gadgets, it captures all particulars in structured tables and robotically maps every line to your Sage GL accounts. You’ll be able to evaluation and regulate these mappings by way of dropdowns, guaranteeing your knowledge is validated earlier than it reaches your accounting system.
The AI mannequin builds understanding by way of context, not simply textual content recognition. When processing an bill, it:
- Distinguishes between totally different tackle varieties (billing vs transport)
- Separates header info from line gadgets
- Acknowledges varied tax classes and calculations
- Maintains relationships between associated knowledge factors
The system additionally tracks AI confidence ranges, exhibiting you precisely how dependable the extraction is for every doc. This helps you resolve which paperwork want handbook evaluation and which will be processed robotically.
3. Automated GL coding and matching
Handbook coding of transactions and matching paperwork towards buy orders are sometimes duties that no AP groups stay up for. They are often time-consuming and error-prone. That is the place Nanonets’ clever matching capabilities make a big distinction.
The system streamlines coding and matching by way of:
- Computerized GL code solutions
- Good matching between invoices, POs, and receipts
- Actual-time validation towards your enterprise guidelines
- Customized routing for exceptions and discrepancies
- Steady studying out of your staff’s corrections
You’ll be able to arrange totally different validation guidelines primarily based in your wants, like:
- Match line gadgets individually for detailed reconciliation
- Evaluate whole quantities for fast validation
- Verify particular fields like tax charges or fee phrases
- Flag mismatches above sure thresholds
The impression will be vital. It will possibly scale back processing time, save time, scale back error charges, and dedicate extra time to exception dealing with. The system additionally maintains a whole audit path of all matches and exceptions, making it simpler to trace points and reveal compliance throughout audits.
4. Approval workflows
Getting invoices authorized is commonly the place bottlenecks happen. You might need distributors chasing funds whereas invoices sit in somebody’s inbox ready for approval. Nanonets addresses this by way of clever workflow automation.
The system handles approvals by way of:
- Customized routing guidelines primarily based on quantity, vendor, or division
- Multi-channel notifications (electronic mail, Slack, Groups)
- One-click approvals from any machine
- Automated reminders for pending gadgets
- Actual-time visibility into approval standing
You’ll be able to arrange approval workflows that match your enterprise wants. For instance:
- Route invoices over $10,000 to senior administration
- Ship IT purchases to your IT staff first
- Require a number of approvals for particular distributors
- Arrange parallel approvals for sooner processing
The system maintains a whole audit path of who authorized what and when, making it simple to trace accountability and guarantee compliance together with your approval insurance policies.
5. Getting your knowledge into Sage Intacct
As soon as paperwork are processed and authorized, you could get this knowledge into Sage. Nanonets presents a number of methods to export your processed knowledge:
- Obtain as CSV recordsdata for customized reporting
- Use APIs for customized workflow integration
- Direct sync with Sage
- Automated knowledge compilation primarily based in your guidelines
The Sage Intacct-Nanonets devoted integration allows you to:
- Create invoice information robotically
- Sync vendor info in real-time
- Keep constant coding throughout methods
- Present detailed sync standing updates
- Use associate SenderID for seamless connectivity
The platform is designed for finance groups to handle independently, with out requiring technical experience.
Seems good on paper? Nicely, let me share an actual instance of how an organization remodeled their AP processes utilizing Nanonets’ AI-powered workflows.
Asian Paints, a number one producer of paints and coatings, automated their total AP workflow utilizing Nanonets. Earlier than automation, their AP staff spent hours manually processing invoices, matching paperwork, and updating their accounting system. Every doc took about 5 minutes to course of, and errors had been frequent regardless of their greatest efforts.
After implementing intelligent automation:
- Processing time dropped to 30 seconds per doc
- Groups saved 192 hours month-to-month
- Accuracy improved considerably
- Employees may lastly concentrate on strategic duties
- Buyer satisfaction reached 8/10
The system begins delivering worth instantly with Zero Shot fashions, whereas Customized and On the spot Studying fashions enhance accuracy over time as they be taught out of your corrections.
What to do subsequent? Should you’re seeking to lower your bill processing time and save hours on AP duties, you may schedule a personalized demo with us. We’ll present you precisely how Nanonets matches into your particular Sage Intacct workflows and assist automate your AP course of end-to-end.
