Solution · Finance & controlling
AI agents for finance and controlling: every posting explained, nothing paid alone.
Finance teams process the same documents every month and explain the same variances every quarter. AI agents capture invoices, propose matches and account coding, chase approvals, prepare reconciliations and draft commentary, while your accountants approve every posting and no payment leaves without a person. Designed for GoBD-compliant record keeping and the German e-invoicing rules.
Where agents pay off in finance
Finance is where agents meet the strictest rules: every number traceable, every posting explainable, every payment authorised by a person.
Agents in finance read documents (invoices, contracts, bank statements, expense receipts), match them to purchase orders, goods receipts and contracts, propose account coding and cost centres with a written reason, route approvals along your authorisation matrix, prepare reconciliations and draft commentary from ledger and planning data. They propose; people post. That division is not a limitation of the technology but the design principle.
Why now: Germany's e-invoicing rules are changing the input side, with businesses required to receive structured e-invoices for domestic B2B transactions and the obligation to issue them being phased in. DATEV, SAP and Microsoft Dynamics expose interfaces, auditors accept automated processes when controls and documentation are in order, and closing calendars keep getting shorter while teams do not grow.
We start with accounts payable or the close checklist, because both are high-volume, rule-based and measurable, and keep segregation of duties, audit trail and explainability intact from the first day. The control design is part of our AI governance work.
- Typical entry pointAccounts payable from inbox to approved posting
- SystemsDATEV, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics and other ERPs, DMS, banking, planning tools
- Human checkpointApprovals, postings, payment release, external reporting
- First pilotTypically 6–8 weeks
Use cases
Six finance workflows where agents do the reading, matching and drafting, and people keep the authority.
Accounts payable: capture, matching, coding, approval routing
The agent captures invoices from email, e-invoice formats such as XRechnung and ZUGFeRD and supplier portals, checks the mandatory invoice details, matches them to purchase orders and goods receipts, proposes account, cost centre and tax code with its reasoning and routes them to the right approver. The accountant confirms the posting. The payment run remains a separate, human-released step.
Accounts receivable and dunning communication
The agent monitors open items, matches incoming payments to invoices, drafts payment reminders in a graduated tone by customer segment and prepares dunning proposals. The receivables clerk approves every letter; disputed items go to sales or customer service with the history attached.
Month-end close checklists and reconciliations
The agent runs the close checklist, reminds task owners, prepares bank, clearing-account and intercompany reconciliations and proposes explanations for differences from the underlying transactions. Controllers review and sign off. Nothing is booked automatically; the agent shortens the search, not the control.
Management reporting and variance commentary
From ERP and planning data the agent drafts the plan-versus-actual commentary in your house format, identifies drivers behind deviations and prepares scenario inputs for FP&A. The controller edits, challenges and owns the narrative. Board packs go out with a person's name on them.
Expense checks and audit preparation
Expense and travel reports are checked against policy (receipts, limits, per diems, approvals) and exceptions are flagged with the rule they broke. For audits the agent retrieves documents for auditor requests, compiles evidence packages and tracks open items. Responses to auditors are written and sent by your team.
Contract obligations and cash-forecast inputs
The agent extracts payment obligations, notice periods, indexation and renewal clauses from contracts into an obligations register and summarises expected inflows and outflows from receivables, payables and contracts as inputs to the cash forecast. Treasury decisions stay with the treasurer.
Worked example
Accounts payable from inbox to approved posting
A typical scenario: a Mittelstand group (a mid-sized, often family-owned company) with several entities receives thousands of supplier invoices a month by email, e-invoice and portal, and approvals take days because invoices sit in inboxes. This is how an AP agent runs the workflow with a controller in the loop.
- Capture. Invoices arrive as PDF attachments, structured e-invoices (XRechnung, ZUGFeRD) or portal downloads. The agent brings them into one queue, removes duplicates and checks the mandatory invoice details required for input VAT deduction, flagging anything missing.
- Supplier identification. It matches the supplier against vendor master data, including bank details. New or changed bank details never pass silently: they trigger a verification task for the master-data team. The agent does not create suppliers.
- Matching. With a purchase order number it performs a two- or three-way match against order and goods receipt, within your tolerances. Non-PO invoices get a proposed cost centre and approver from history and the contract register.
- Coding proposal. The agent proposes account, cost centre, tax code and posting period, each with a short reason (“previous invoices from this supplier were coded to this account; contract X applies”) and a confidence score.
- Approval routing (human gate). Approvers receive the invoice, the matching result and the coding proposal and approve with one click or comment. Routing follows your authorisation matrix, including amount thresholds and second approvers; reminders chase overdue approvals.
- Posting (human gate). The accountant reviews the queue of approved invoices with everything attached and posts in the ERP or DATEV with one action. During the pilot the agent never posts on its own. Later, you may allow automatic posting for fully matched PO invoices below a threshold.
- Payment run. The payment proposal is generated by your system according to due dates and discount terms and released by two authorised people. The agent has no access to payment functions.
- Archiving. Original document, extracted data, coding, approvals and timestamps are stored immutably to support GoBD requirements, and the procedural documentation is updated to describe the new process.
- Monthly review. Touchless rate, cycle time from receipt to posting, exceptions by cause and captured discounts are reviewed with the head of accounting.
Guardrails and risks in finance
No autonomous payments
The agent has no rights in payment systems and never will in our designs. Payment proposals are generated by your ERP or banking software and released by authorised people under the four-eyes principle. Bank-detail changes trigger human verification.
Segregation of duties preserved
The agent's roles mirror your authorisation matrix. The same identity cannot capture, approve and post, thresholds and second approvers apply to it as they do to people, and its permissions are reviewed like any user's. Internal control remains yours to demonstrate.
Audit trail and GoBD
Every document, extraction, proposal, approval and posting is logged immutably with timestamps and identities, retention follows your policy, and the procedural documentation describes the process. We recommend involving your auditor and tax advisor during design; this is process design, not tax or legal advice.
Explainability of every suggestion
Every coding, matching and commentary proposal carries its reasoning, its sources and a confidence score, in language an accountant and an auditor can follow. No black-box postings, and uncertain proposals go to a person by default.
Data protection and confidentiality
Invoices, expense reports and payroll-related documents contain personal data: names, bank details of sole traders, employees' travel. We restrict access by role, keep processing in the EU where required, agree processor terms with model providers and involve your data-protection officer before the pilot.
How we start
Finance assessment
We map your AP and close processes, volumes, systems and control framework, identify exception patterns and record baseline metrics: cycle time, cost per invoice, touchless rate, days to close. The first flow is selected with your head of finance.
Control and workflow design
Workflow, authorisation matrix, audit trail and archiving are designed with accounting, IT and your auditor or tax advisor. Data protection is settled before anything is built.
Pilot
Shadow mode on real invoices, then proposal mode with accountants approving. Weekly measurement of accuracy, touchless rate and cycle time against the baseline.
Scale and operate
More entities, document types, close tasks and reporting flows, with managed AI operations keeping rules, integrations and documentation current as systems and regulations change.
Frequently asked questions
Will the agent post or pay anything on its own?
No. It proposes postings with reasons, a person approves and posts, and payments are released by authorised people in your banking or ERP system, where the agent has no access. If you later want automatic posting for fully matched purchase-order invoices below a threshold, that is a decision you take with your auditor, based on pilot data.
Is this compatible with the GoBD?
The GoBD require, in general terms, traceability, completeness, timely recording, immutability and procedural documentation. Our workflows are designed to support each of these: immutable logs, complete audit trail, documented process. Whether your specific setup meets the requirements is for your tax advisor and auditor to confirm; we provide the documentation they need and do not give tax or legal advice.
How does it fit with the German e-invoicing obligation?
Since 2025 businesses in Germany must be able to receive structured e-invoices for domestic B2B transactions, and the obligation to issue them is being phased in; timelines and exceptions should be checked with your tax advisor. The agent processes structured formats such as XRechnung and ZUGFeRD alongside PDFs and paper scans, so the transition does not require two processes.
Which systems do you work with?
DATEV, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, other ERPs, document management systems, banking software and planning tools, connected through their interfaces. We are vendor-neutral, evaluate the AI features already in your systems and only build what those do not cover. Where a system has no usable interface, we say so early.
How is confidential financial and personal data protected?
Access is restricted by role, exactly as in your ERP; prompts contain only the data a task needs; processing stays in the EU where required; and processor agreements with model providers are part of the setup. Salary and HR-related documents are excluded from the agent's scope unless a use case specifically requires them. Your data-protection officer reviews the design.
What happens to our accounting team?
Agents remove tasks, not usually roles. Typing, chasing approvals and hunting for documents shrink; exception handling, controls, analysis and advising the business grow. Most finance teams are understaffed relative to their closing calendar, so the capacity is absorbed quickly. We plan the change with the head of finance and train the team on the new workflow.
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Let's find the first workflow worth automating.
A 30-minute intro call, no slides and no obligation. We listen, ask about your processes, and tell you honestly where AI agents would pay off and where they would not.