How many times do you touch a specific item in your accounts payable workflow? You may think once or twice, but the reality is usually much higher. Each manual touchpoint—whether it’s data entry, chasing approvals, or correcting recurring invoices—adds up, consuming a significant part of an AP professional’s day.
Even with modern automation tools in NetSuite, these repetitive tasks persist, keeping teams from reaching their true efficiency potential. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
In this post, we’ll explore how next-generation, holistic automation from Charted can cut over 25% of manual touchpoints from the typical AP process. Discover the evolution of touchless invoice processing, why reducing touches matters, and how you can confidently leverage a single source of truth for data in NetSuite.
The evolution of Touchless Invoice Processing and why it matters
The evolution of touchless invoice processing is a major leap forward from traditional accounts payable automation. In the past, even the best AP solutions relied heavily on manual intervention, requiring teams to review, validate, and manage exceptions for nearly every invoice.
Over time, however, technology advanced beyond simple data capture and basic workflow automation. Modern touchless invoice processing leverages AI, machine learning, and deep NetSuite integration to intelligently recognize, validate, and process invoices for high-confidence, recurring vendors without human involvement.
For Charted, our invoice evolution began with traditional optical character recognition (OCR) technology, using character scanning and traditional commands to filter invoices. Then we introduced Invoice AI in 2024, utilizing natural language directions to more easily prompt invoice processing and enabling our OCR product to use AI capabilities for faster and more accurate invoice sorting. Now, invoice technology has moved to a completely touchless workflow that ensures AP professionals no longer have to spend time manually checking invoices for one-off mistakes.
Why do these improvements matter? Every manual touchpoint adds unseen costs, slows down your AP cycle, and increases the risk of errors. By reducing the need for human intervention, touchless processing empowers AP teams to focus on strategic work, accelerates invoice approvals, and delivers more accurate financial data.
How to boost accuracy and leverage a single source of truth for data in NetSuite
Achieving high accuracy in your AP process hinges on having a single, reliable source of truth for your data, which is something that traditional AP automation can struggle to deliver. When you rely on scattered spreadsheets, disconnected systems, or manual data entry, discrepancies and errors creep in, undermining both efficiency and confidence in your financial reporting.
With holistic, touchless automation natively integrated within NetSuite, every invoice is automatically captured, validated, and processed directly in your ERP. Which means all AP data lives in one place, giving your team real-time visibility and eliminating the risks of duplicate entries or missed approvals.
By leveraging a unified source of truth, you can reduce manual corrections and ensure your financial data is always up to date, improving accuracy and empowering your team to make faster, more informed decisions.
The future of AP: How a holistic approach can transform your workflow
The future of accounts payable is here, and it’s intelligently automated, holistic, and built to change the way your team works. By ditching piecemeal automation and embracing a unified, AI-driven approach, AP departments can finally eliminate the friction and fragmentation that slow down their processes. So, how can it transform your workflows?
With smart AP automation, powered by advanced AI and deep NetSuite integration, your workflows become more than just efficient, they become truly intelligent. Touchless Invoice Processing learns from your data, automatically recognizes routine, creates bills for high-confidence vendors and processes them without human intervention. This means fewer manual reviews, faster approval cycles, and the ability to handle growing invoice volumes without adding headcount.
But the benefits go even further. Automated AP processes centralize all your data and workflows within NetSuite, giving you real-time visibility and stronger controls. That means your team is freed from repetitive tasks and empowered to focus on strategic initiatives like optimizing cash flow or strengthening vendor relationships.
The next generation of invoice and payment automation from Charted doesn’t just cut manual touchpoints, it reimagines your entire AP operation as a driver of business value. By adopting Touchless Invoice Processing, you unlock new levels of accuracy, scalability, and confidence so your organization can grow without the bottlenecks of the past.
