The City of Joensuu in Finland receives about 50,000 purchase invoices every year, and processing the invoices manually is time consuming. Employees must review and approve each one. Working with CGI, the city decided to introduce artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to manage daily invoice posting and routing. As a result, the city was able to automate 80% of its invoice processing, significantly reducing manual effort.
"Manual processing and inspection now take a fraction of the time we used to spend,” said Tiina Eskelinen, Project Leader and Finance Manager for the City of Joensuu.
The City of Joensuu has 440 employees, and 270 work as invoice auditors. "Probably every one of our auditors has come across invoices entered by AI," adds Eskelinen.
After the introduction of AI, it is even more important how products or services are ordered and in what form one wants to receive invoices. The more invoices we receive that AI can directly bill and route, the fewer invoices that require human time and attention.
Finance Manager, City of Joensuu
AI learns and performs human tasks
With AI, the city was able not only to automate up to 80% of its electronic invoice processing, but also reduce its error margin. The error margin for invoices processed by AI is significantly lower than for those processed by people.
"We were able to introduce AI via CGI Purchase to Pay without changing any invoicing or routing rules,” said CGI’s Anne Viitanen. “AI works together with existing rules, although it could possibly replace them at a later stage to drive even further benefits. In addition, AI can process both e-invoices and paper invoices scanned into electronic format.
A large project requires the ability to cooperate well
Eskelinen praised the smoothness of the project. "Moving forward together, we understood how multifaceted the project was. In this regard, we greatly value the expertise of CGI's professionals." Eskelinen continued: "Keeping in close contact has made it easier to settle things, and we have always kept up to date with the progress of the project. The development work still continues according to the agreed schedule, and there are meetings approximately once a month.”
CGI’s Aino Suurmaa added, "During the project, AI was developed for the City of Joensuu so that it can route invoices to routing groups, as well as to individual auditors. We will continue to work with the city to train the AI models, so that their reliability improves on an ongoing basis."
"The AI functionality used in the processing of purchase invoices has generated a lot of interest among CGI Purchase to Pay clients,” continued Suurmaa. “One new project is in production, and another is currently underway.”
