Documents from email to ERP with no human input
A robot reads documents from email and enters them in the ERP. Rekeying errors are gone and documents move through the company faster.
The starting point
Documents that arrived by email were keyed into the company ERP by hand. Every rekeying step was a source of errors and slowed documents down.
The goal
Fully automate the routine rekeying of documents into the ERP with RPA and AI OCR, and free people up for more skilled work.
The solution
- We agreed with business partners that they would send documents to dedicated email addresses (invoicing, orders). The robot uses these to sort incoming mail into folders as soon as it arrives.
- At regular intervals, the robot goes through unread messages and pulls out the attached PDFs.
- AI OCR extracts all the required data from the documents.
- The robot logs in to the ERP under its own account and enters the records from the extracted data.
The result
- The whole process, from the email arriving to posting in the ERP, runs without human input.
- Rekeying errors are gone, and documents move through the company much faster.
- After the first, simpler process, we looked for the next ones together and deployed more complex automations.
After implementing the first process, which we saw as the simpler one, we immediately started looking with XELTO for more ways to use the robot. We then applied it to more complex processes. Working with XELTO, we see the potential to make our processes more efficient, both financially and in how we use our people's time.
Supplier invoices go from email into the accounts on their own, twice a day
Twice a day, a robot goes through the invoice mailbox and creates each invoice in the accounting software as a provisionally entered document.
A robot checks delivery schedules from email, giving the planner a third of his capacity back
Twice a day, a robot extracts delivery schedules from PDFs, checks the orders in the ERP and sends a report to planning.
Over 20 automated processes, and three fewer hires needed
RPA took over work that was spread across several people, sped up processes and cut work outside office hours.