The good news: if you're running Microsoft Dynamics 365, you don't need a separate AP tool to fix this. With the right setup, you can automate invoice capture, matching, approvals, and posting entirely inside your ERP — no bolt-on software, no duplicate data, no integration headaches.
The proof is there too. A 2026 study conducted by Avanade, assessing ExFlow value realization in D365 AP automation, found that organizations running ERP-native AP automation cut invoice processing time by up to 76% compared to standard F&O without OCR. At Teleperformance — a global business services company with over 500,000 employees — the best-performing region processed invoices in 4 minutes on average, versus 17 minutes in regions still relying on standard tools.
Here's how to do it.
Why ERP-Native AP Automation Is Different
Most AP automation products sit outside your ERP and sync data back in. That sounds fine in theory, but in practice it means duplicate records, attribution gaps, audit trails spread across two systems, and more integration points to maintain.
ERP-native automation — like what Truvio Ap Automation (formerly ExFlow) delivers inside Dynamics 365 — keeps everything in one place. Invoices, approvals, postings, and audit logs all live in Business Central or F&O. One system of record. One process. And when something goes wrong, you're not debugging a middleware connection.
In a weighted benchmark across five criteria — functional coverage, D365 integration, scalability, user experience, and TCO — Avanade scored ExFlow at 4.65 out of 5 for overall enterprise fit in a D365-centric context, ahead of alternatives including Medius and Esker (both 4.1). The conclusion: for organizations standardizing on D365, an embedded approach consistently outperforms connector-based tools, particularly in multi-entity and international environments.
This matters more in 2026 than it did even two years ago, because finance leaders are being asked to do more with leaner teams. The margin for inefficiency is gone.
Step 1: Get Every Invoice Into D365 Automatically
The first bottleneck in manual invoice processing is capture. Invoices arrive as PDFs, XML files, e-invoices via Peppol, and sometimes still as paper. Each format is handled differently, and that inconsistency creates delays before anyone has even looked at the invoice.
Fixing this means:
- Configuring email ingestion for PDF invoices
- Setting up structured imports for XML and e-invoice formats
- Defining extraction rules that pull supplier name, invoice amount, VAT, due date, and PO reference automatically
- Validating extracted data against your vendor master and D365 posting rules before anything reaches AP
The goal is that invoices arrive in D365 ready to process — not ready to be keyed in.
Step 2: Increase Touchless Processing With Smart Matching
Manual invoice processing spikes when matching goes wrong. An invoice comes in, the PO number is slightly off, or the price doesn't match within tolerance, and suddenly someone has to get involved.
Getting matching right reduces that category of exception significantly. Avanade's analysis references a 40–60% reduction in invoice cycle time as a repeatable outcome from smart routing and automated matching across ExFlow deployments.
For PO invoices, configure two-way or three-way matching — invoice against PO, and where relevant, against a goods receipt. Set tolerances for price and quantity variances so the system can auto-approve minor differences instead of escalating them.
For non-PO and expense invoices, use auto-coding rules based on vendor, cost center, or historical patterns. When the system knows how you've coded similar invoices before, it can pre-code new ones and reduce the decision burden on AP.
The higher your touchless rate, the smaller the volume that actually needs human attention.
Step 3: Replace Email Approvals With Governed Workflows
Email-based approvals are where audit trails go to die. Who approved it? When? Which version of the invoice? Finance teams spend real time piecing this together for audits and vendor disputes.
Inside D365, you can configure approval workflows that are governed, traceable, and actually fast:
- Amount-based approval limits that route invoices to the right person automatically
- Dimension-based routing by cost center, project, or business unit
- Role-based chains for line managers, project leads, and finance sign-off
- Auto-approval for invoices that meet all matching and policy criteria, so the only things hitting an approver's queue are genuine exceptions
Approvers can work inside D365 directly, or surface approvals via Outlook and Microsoft Teams. Either way, the process is anchored in the ERP — not scattered across inboxes.
Step 4: Post Automatically and Build a Clean Audit Trail
Once an invoice is approved, it should post. Not after someone processes it. Not after a batch run at end of day. Automatically.
ERP-native automation lets approved invoices post directly to the general ledger, vendor accounts, and subledgers in Business Central or F&O using your existing posting configuration. No re-keying, no manual posting steps.
At the same time, every action is logged: capture date, who matched it, who approved it, when it posted. Finance can query status at any point, and when an auditor asks for documentation, you pull it from one place.
The practical impact on team capacity is real. At Teleperformance, the France operation reduced its AP team from 4 FTEs to 1, with the remaining three redeployed to higher-value roles. A multi-country beverage group that migrated from SAP to D365 set a target of 70–75% hands-free AP processing, with risk reduction and control as the primary drivers — not just cost. Both organizations cited the embedded audit trail inside D365 as a core operational requirement, not a nice-to-have.
This is how AP teams close periods faster and spend less time on compliance prep.
Step 5: Use AI to Keep Improving Touchless Rates
Rule-based automation gets you a long way. But in 2026, the ceiling on what's possible has risen significantly because AI-assisted processing is now practical inside production AP environments.
Avanade's study categorizes the AI opportunity in three areas. The first is operational efficiency: intelligent invoice classification and routing, automated anomaly detection on invoice content and matching, and continuous learning from corrections so the system improves over time. This is where Truvio's TruvioSense capabilities are already active.
The second is risk and compliance: detection of unusual patterns such as duplicate invoices, abnormal amounts, or unfamiliar vendors, flagged before posting rather than discovered in audit. The third, still maturing, is CFO-level steering: predictive cash-flow insights, early-payment discount identification, and AI-assisted root-cause analysis on AP bottlenecks.
For finance teams today, the operational efficiency tier is where the immediate return sits. The risk detection layer is increasingly relevant for organizations operating across multiple countries and regulatory frameworks. Both are available now.
The shift is from static rules that require ongoing maintenance to adaptive automation that gets better as invoice volumes grow.
Step 6: Measure What's Working and Adjust
Automation doesn't fix a broken process. It amplifies it — for better or worse. That's why measurement matters.
Embedded dashboards inside D365 let you track:
- Invoice cycle time, from receipt to posting
- Touchless rate, how much is processing without manual intervention
- Exception rate and where exceptions are coming from
- Approval times by approver and department
These KPIs give you the data to make targeted adjustments: tighten a matching tolerance, adjust a routing rule, identify an approver who's sitting on invoices. Over time, AP automation stops being an IT project and becomes a managed process with clear metrics and clear accountability.
What to Do Next
If your team is still handling invoice processing manually — or semi-manually — inside Dynamics 365, the architecture to fix it exists. The question is how to configure it for your specific invoice mix, approval structure, and posting setup.
Truvio works natively inside both D365 Business Central and Finance & Operations. If you want to see how this looks in practice for a business like yours, book a demo .
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