Use cases by function6 use cases
Finance automation with a controller's instincts built in
Finance is where automation pays back most reliably and where mistakes cost the most, so the design differs from support or sales. Extraction, matching and chasing are automated. Anything that moves money, changes a supplier's bank details or posts to the ledger passes through rules in code and a person's approval. The model reads and proposes. It does not decide.
The appetite is there. Ardent Partners reported in August 2026 that 58% of accounts payable teams are using or piloting AI, and that slow approvals and high exception rates are their two biggest problems, at 48% each. Fraud is the other reason to build carefully: the FBI's 2025 internet crime report puts business email compromise losses at $3.05 billion, and the classic attack is a polite email announcing new bank details.
In Europe, e-invoicing mandates have changed the job. Belgium's Peppol mandate started in January 2026, Poland's KSeF in February, France began receiving from 1 September 2026 and Germany's issuing obligation starts in 2027. Structured invoices remove the scanning problem and replace it with validation, matching and legacy systems that cannot produce the format. The pages here cover supplier invoice processing, receiving e-invoices, issuing XRechnung from an old ERP and chasing clients for documents.
Finance and accounting systems I can build
An e-invoice layer that lets an old ERP issue XRechnung and ZUGFeRD before 2027
Reads invoice data from the ERP you already have, maps it to EN 16931, generates XRechnung or ZUGFeRD, validates every file with KoSIT and sends it by email or Peppol.
The existing ERP or billing system / KoSIT validator / Email (Outlook or plain SMTP) / Peppol access point / DATEV
Receiving XRechnung, ZUGFeRD and Peppol invoices without retyping a single field
Structured e-invoices end the retyping, not the work: this pipeline validates them, renders them for approvers, matches them to orders and archives the original XML.
Peppol access point / Outlook or Gmail AP inbox / KoSIT validator / DATEV / Xero
Supplier invoices from inbox to ledger, with the checks a good controller would do
Reads supplier invoices from the AP inbox, matches them to purchase orders and goods receipts, and holds any invoice whose bank details changed until someone calls.
Outlook (Microsoft 365) / Xero / QuickBooks Online / DATEV / NetSuite
3PL invoices built from warehouse events instead of month-end spreadsheets
Computes storage, pick and pack and value-added service charges from WMS events and each client's rate card, drafts invoices, and explains any line a client questions.
The WMS (Extensiv, ShipHero, Logiwa or similar) / Excel or Google Sheets / Xero / QuickBooks Online / Client-facing breakdown
Chasing clients for receipts and bank statements without an accountant doing the chasing
A per-client checklist of what should arrive each month, polite reminders that name exactly what is missing, and every photo and PDF filed against the right booking.
DATEV / Xero / QuickBooks Online / WhatsApp Business Platform / Gmail
Collections follow-up that stays polite, logs promises to pay and routes disputes to a person
Staged payment reminders that check for payments first, read every reply, log promises to pay and pause for disputes, with anything final left to a person.
Xero / QuickBooks Online / NetSuite / Stripe / HubSpot
The controls that come standard
Every posting can be traced
Source document, extracted fields, the rules that passed or failed, who approved and when. An auditor should be able to follow any entry back to the email it arrived in.
Bank details are verified out of band
A changed IBAN is never accepted from the email that announced it. It triggers a check through a contact already on file, and payment waits until a person confirms.
Nothing posts twice
Every write is keyed so that a retry, a duplicate email or the same invoice arriving as PDF and e-invoice cannot create a second entry.
The exception queue is the product
Straight-through processing is the easy part. What makes finance teams trust a system is a review screen that shows the document, the extracted value and the reason it was flagged, side by side.
Much of it is not AI
Structured e-invoices, three-way matching and billing calculations are ordinary code. The model is used where text is messy: free-text invoice lines, emails, scans and coding proposals.
Your ledger stays your ledger
Xero, QuickBooks, DATEV, NetSuite or SAP Business One remain the source of truth. The automation feeds them and reads from them; it does not become a second set of books.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI do bookkeeping?
AI can do much of the preparation: reading invoices and receipts, proposing account and tax codes with a reason, matching payments, and asking clients about unclear transactions. It should not post or pay without a person, and the accountant still owns the books. The realistic gain is that people review and decide instead of typing and chasing.
How do I automate accounts payable?
Start with capture and validation from the AP inbox, add matching against purchase orders and goods receipts, then approval routing in the tools your approvers already use, then posting. Bank detail changes and anything unmatched go to a person. Most teams see value from capture and matching before posting is automated at all.
What do the EU e-invoicing mandates mean for my business?
It depends on the country. Germany has required businesses to be able to receive structured e-invoices since January 2025, with issuing phased in from 2027. Belgium and Poland started their mandates in 2026, and France began on 1 September 2026. In each case, a PDF by email stops being enough for domestic B2B invoices.
Does it work with DATEV, Xero and QuickBooks?
Yes. Xero and QuickBooks Online have mature APIs and official MCP servers. DATEV integrations go through its marketplace interfaces, which require partner onboarding, and most German firms already exchange data with DATEV through standard export formats that the build can produce.
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