Automating Invoice Processing with AI and Oracle APEX

The Overview

Trailcon Leasing is a leading transportation company in Canada, specializing in trailer rentals, leasing, and maintenance solutions. Handling thousands of invoices from subcontractors each month, the company sought to streamline its invoice processing, which was previously a labor-intensive and error-prone task due to the variety of formats and manual data entry involved.

The Challenge

Trailcon faced several key challenges in their invoice processing workflow:

• Manual Invoice Processing: Invoices arrived in various formats via email and had to be processed manually by human agents.
• Inefficient Workflow: Processing thousands of invoices each month consumed significant time and resources.
• Risk of Errors: Manual data entry led to fatigue and frequent errors, particularly when extracting specific data fields such as taxes that varied by Canadian provinces and territories.

The Solution

Talan supported Trailcon in developing an application utilizing Oracle’s AI-powered Document Understanding service to automate the parsing of digitized invoices. Key aspects of the solution included: 

• Custom Model Training: Since the pre-trained AI models were based on U.S. datasets, Talan employed transfer learning to adapt the models to extract data fields unique to Canada, such as provincial tax codes.
• Semi-Automated Processing Module: Talan helped integrate a semi-automated module into Trailcon’s lease management application. This module downloads invoice PDFs from emails, uses the AI model to pre-populate the required data fields, and allows human agents to validate and adjust the information before it is sent to the finance department for payment.

The Results

The implementation of the AI-powered invoice processing solution led to the following benefits: 

• Significant Time Savings: Processing time was reduced from 30 minutes to just 5 minutes per invoice.
• Increased Accuracy: The solution reduced the frequency of data entry errors and alleviated the fatigue commonly associated with manual data entry.
• Enhanced Efficiency: By automating a substantial portion of the workflow, Trailcon’s finance department was able to focus on more value-added tasks, improving overall operational efficiency.

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