How San Andrés University is Minimizing Manual Data Entry for Payables with Esker’s AI Engine

The need for accounts payable (AP) automation at an educational institution may not be an obvious one. However, San Andrés University found itself with a unique set of challenges in its current payables process. They turned to Esker’s AI-driven solution to overcome those challenges — here’s how they did it.

The University of San Andrés is an Argentine private non-profit university located in the town of Victoria, a partido of San Fernando about 28 km northwest of the city of Buenos Aires. As an institution that dictates both undergraduate degrees and MBAs, it’s common that the professors it employs teach more than one program. The school also has specialists that only teach specific courses, and with the high variability of teaching staff, the university’s AP department found it difficult and complex to manually allocate expenses. This is what kickstarted their search for an AP automation solution.

The university took the time to analyze alternatives and provider options, but found that many used template-based technologies that seemed to present a new set of challenges. With the university’s specific needs regarding expense variability, templates would still require a lot of manual day-to-day work to be able to handle new invoices or the ever-changing circumstances among its suppliers

The University of San Andrés found the right fit with Esker’s Accounts Payable automation solution. With its AI-driven data capture that continually improves the more it’s used, there’s no need for templates, and onboarding new suppliers (teachers) is quicker and easier than ever. Not only does the automation rate of invoices continue to increase — freeing up time significant time for AP staff to focus on more value-added activities — it also reduces the risk of human error.

Additionally, the solution’s online supplier portal is providing its valued suppliers with access to invoices and other important documents from any location, at any time. This function has allowed the institution to better serve its suppliers and cultivate stronger relationships with them, all while reducing manual interaction. However, if human interaction with AP staff is needed, the portal also provides chat tools that make it quick and easy to make contact and get help.

This AP automation project has also served as a catalyst for organization-wide transformation for the University of San Andrés. According to university Finance Director Mercedes Ball, the institution plans to expand its digital transformation efforts not only to other procure-to-pay (P2P) processes, but to its order-to-cash (O2C) processes as well — such as collections management.

More about University of San Andrés

Since its creation in 1988, the university functioned within the scope of the San Andrés Scottish Civil Educational Association (ACEESA). Years later it was decided to split its operation. To do this, in 2010 the Fundación Universidad de San Andrés (FUdeSA) was created, an entity that would be in charge of the government and management of the University. Learn more about them here.