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AP automation software

Accounts payable automation that posts to your ERP.

Stratas automates accounts payable for UK finance teams. Purchase invoices are captured, matched to the order, approved and posted in the ERP you already run, and every one is checked for duplicates and overbilling before it reaches your ledger.

Trusted by 150+ UK finance teams
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See it run

How an invoice moves through Stratas

Captured, matched to the order, checked, approved, posted to your ERP and ready to pay. Nobody keys a line.

Proof

The numbers behind Stratas

150+

UK finance teams using Stratas

5M+

Invoices processed

100+

ERP and accounting integrations

89%

Extraction accuracy

Innovus

Property management · MRI QUBE

Customer story
“The AP team love the solution. It's so easy to use and has made a real difference in our day to day roles.”

Kerry Tattersal, AP Lead, Innovus

Read the full story

8/min

Invoices processed, up from one every 2 to 3 minutes

6 to 0

Contractors needed for invoice entry

Eliminated

Manual data entry

Every format

Every format lands in one queue.

Email attachments, scanned paper, PDFs, XML and supplier portals all arrive in the same place. Most suppliers need no setup, and duplicates are caught before anyone works on them.

INV #4587
Pending

Brellacott Software Ltd

22 May 2026

ItemAmount
Annual licence fee£9,500.00
Support & maintenance£2,950.00
Total£12,450.00
INV #4213
Approved

Wyncaster & Pike Consulting

17 May 2026

ItemAmount
Professional services£6,000.00
Development services£2,200.00
Total£8,200.00
INV #3163
Approved

Ostwerne Facilities Ltd

12 Mar 2026

ItemAmount
Consulting services£2,400.00
Infrastructure setup£1,380.00
Total£3,780.00

Capture

Read from email

Match

Matched to PO

Approve

Routed by value

Post to ERP

Posted with coding

Matching

Checked line by line against the order.

Each invoice is compared with its purchase order and goods received note, line by line. Clean matches go straight through. When something differs, your team sees exactly which line and by how much.

Invoice

INV-4587

£12,450

PO

PO-2241

£12,450

GRN

DN-8834

£12,450

Line itemInvoicePOMatch
Annual licence£9,500£9,500
Support£2,950£2,950
3-way match confirmed
Approvals

Approval rules that match how you sign off.

Route by value, cost centre, supplier or department, following the sign off structure you already have. Reminders go out on their own, so nobody spends the week chasing.

ROUTING RULE

If amount> £5,000route toFinance Director

Invoice approval needed

INV-4587 from Brellacott Software · £12,450.00

Approved by S. Patel · 4m 12s
ERP posting

Posted with the coding your ERP expects.

Approved invoices are validated against your suppliers, nominal codes and open orders, then posted. Every step is recorded with who did it and when, ready for your auditors. Managing agents on MRI Qube or Blocks Online can use Dataforge Invoices, our invoice and utility bill automation for property management.

FIELD MAPPING

GL Account
5100-00
Cost Centre
CC-340
Tax Code
STD 20%
Currency
GBP

Dynamics 365

General Ledger

How it works

How do you automate accounts payable?

You automate accounts payable by letting software do the steps a clerk does today: collect every supplier invoice, read it, check it against the purchase order and goods receipt, send it to the right approver and post it to your ERP. Your team then works a short queue of exceptions instead of a pile of invoices.

  1. 01

    Capture every invoice in one queue. Give suppliers one address. Email attachments, scanned post, portal downloads, XML and e-invoices all land in the same queue, so nothing waits in a personal inbox and a duplicate is caught the moment it arrives.

  2. 02

    Read the data instead of keying it. Intelligent document processing pulls out the supplier, invoice number, dates, net, VAT and each line from any layout, without a template per supplier. A field that fails a check, such as a total that does not add up, is held for a person rather than posted.

  3. 03

    Match to the order and the receipt. Each invoice is compared with its purchase order and, for goods, the goods receipt. A clean match carries on. A price or quantity difference goes to the buyer with the exact line that differs. Some mismatches clear themselves once the warehouse books the receipt, so the rule is hold, not reject. What 3-way matching checks.

  4. 04

    Route approvals by your rules. Value thresholds, cost centres and delegation when someone is away decide who signs off. Approvers see the invoice, the order and the history in one place, on any device, so a decision takes seconds. How an invoice approval workflow is set up.

  5. 05

    Post to the ERP, coded. Approved invoices post into Sage, SAP, Business Central, NetSuite, Xero or whichever of our 100+ ERP integrations you run, with supplier, nominal and VAT codes taken from the ERP’s own lists. Where a system has no API, a scheduled import file does the same job: see how it works for Sage 200 and Business Central, or browse every ERP integration.

  6. 06

    Measure, then tighten. Track touchless rate, exception rate and cycle time from the first week. Most of the gain after go-live comes from fixing the master data and purchase order habits that the exception queue reveals. The accounts payable KPIs that matter.

Clean the supplier file before you start. At one UK client the supplier account reference was blank on every record, even though the suppliers printed it on their invoices, so for the first weeks each invoice needed its account chosen by hand. An hour on the supplier master saves that. Automation does not remove the exception queue either, and anyone who says every invoice will pass through untouched is selling. The target is a queue short enough for one person to clear each morning.

Work out what the exceptions cost you today
Works with your ERP

Every integration has its own page. Start with the system you run.

From our customers

Fewer hours on the purchase ledger, the same team.

Customer storyPulman Group
“We've gone from one and a half people doing purchase ledger to less than one. It's freed up the team for other work.”

Connor, Financial Director, Pulman Group

Automotive · Dealer Management System

1.5 to 0.6

FTEs on the purchase ledger

99%

Adoption across 30 managers

Read the story
FAQ

Common questions.

Accounts payable automation is software that handles supplier invoices from the moment they arrive to the moment they are posted. It reads each invoice, matches it to the purchase order and goods receipt, sends it to the right approver and posts it to your ERP coded and with VAT. Your team only deals with the exceptions.

Capture every supplier invoice in one queue, read the data with document processing instead of keying it, match each invoice to its purchase order and goods receipt, route the ones that need a sign-off by your approval rules, and post the approved invoice to your ERP with the coding already on it. Your team then clears the exceptions, which are the invoices that failed a check. We set the rules up around your ERP and your process.

Not completely, and nobody honest will tell you otherwise. Invoices that match an order and a receipt and sit within your rules can post with no one touching them. There is always a queue of exceptions, such as a missing order, a price outside tolerance or a new supplier, and the aim is to make that queue short and give the person clearing it everything they need on one screen.

Yes. Supplier, nominal and VAT codes come from your ERP's own lists and the supplier's history, so most invoices arrive coded. Anything unusual is flagged for your team to confirm before it is posted.

Start with your monthly invoice volume, the time each invoice takes to key, chase and file, and how often a mismatch needs fixing. Our ROI calculator works it out from your own numbers, and we check it against your actual process before you commit to anything.

OCR turns an image into text. AP automation does what happens next: it works out which document it is, pulls out the header and line items, checks them against your suppliers, purchase orders and nominal codes, routes the invoice for approval and posts it to your ERP.

No. Your ERP stays the system of record. Invoices arrive in it already coded, matched and approved. We connect to Sage, SAP, Business Central, NetSuite, Xero and 100+ other ERPs.

No. We work with several AP platforms and some of the software is ours. We recommend the one that fits your ERP, volumes and approval rules, then implement and support it. If none of them is the right fit, we will tell you.

It depends on your ERP and how complex your process is, so we scope it properly before giving you a plan. We run a parallel period alongside your existing process so your team can check accuracy before going live.

It is held and routed to the right person with the invoice, the purchase order and the exact line and amount that differs. Clean matches carry on without anyone touching them.

PDFs, scanned paper, photos, email attachments, XML and EDI. Most suppliers need no setup. A handful of unusual layouts may need a few corrections before the extraction settles.

See your own invoices post to your ERP.

Bring a few real supplier invoices to the call. We'll run them through capture, matching and approval, and show you how they would land in Sage, SAP, NetSuite or whichever ERP you run.