Moving Beyond OCR: How Ascend AP Delivers True Accounts Payable Automation

OCR Technology: A Great Start for AP Efficiency

As businesses look to modernize their accounts payable (AP) operations, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has become an important tool for streamlining invoice processing. Solutions like Workday’s Supplier Invoice Automation (SIA) leverage OCR to extract invoice data, reduce manual data entry, and speed up workflows—an excellent first step for many organizations.

However, as AP teams handle increasing volumes and more complex invoices, the limitations of OCR technology alone begin to emerge. Workday’s OCR offers valuable time savings for straightforward processes. For organizations looking to fully automate complex AP workflows at scale, Ascend AP adds the advanced, scalable capabilities needed to achieve that goal alongside Workday.

This is where Ascend AP stands apart—bridging the gap between OCR efficiency and full AP automation.

What Makes Ascend AP Different?

Ascend AP isn’t just about processing invoices faster—it’s about transforming AP workflows from start to finish. By combining intelligent automation with advanced features, Ascend AP helps businesses eliminate manual intervention, improve accuracy, and scale without needing to grow their AP team.

Here's how Ascend AP enhances Workday's capabilities to deliver even more automation. 

1. Touchless Invoice Processing

Workday’s OCR helps AP teams by accurately extracting basic invoice data, offering a great foundation for straightforward businesses. Ascend AP takes it further by enabling a largely touchless process from invoice ingestion through review, validation, and approval, greatly reducing the need for manual intervention on more complex processes.

With Ascend AP, there's 97% header line recognition and 60% touchless processing guaranteed—from ingestion to approval—without manual intervention. This difference ensures that invoices flow smoothly, avoiding bottlenecks in exception queues. AP teams only focus on exceptions, freeing up valuable time to prioritize strategic initiatives. For most companies, this level of processing exceeds what’s typically needed, offering both efficiency and reliability.

Example: For a company processing 100,000 invoices annually, Ascend AP reduces manual touchpoints by thousands of hours—equivalent to saving upwards of 28,000 hours of work! 

2. Superior Accuracy and Intelligent Recognition

OCR accuracy is critical for reducing errors and manual corrections. Ascend AP delivers consistently high accuracy rates (90%+ for header fields) right out of the box.

Unlike standard OCR solutions, Ascend AP uses machine learning to continuously improve accuracy and adapt to your unique invoice data.

• Faster Supplier Recognition: Ascend AP recognizes suppliers within 3–5 invoice scans, compared to 10–15 scans for other tools.

• Line-Level Data: Ascend AP can extract and match complex line-item details, ensuring invoices align with purchase orders—even when formatting is inconsistent.

• Non-PO Invoice Automation: One of Ascend AP’s most impactful benefits is its ability to automate non-PO invoices. While many solutions struggle with the unstructured nature of non-PO data, Ascend AP leverages a unique combination of logic based rules and prediction engines to validate and complete missing line items so they are routed correctly. This means businesses can confidently process invoices that don’t originate from purchase orders—without manual intervention—saving significant time and reducing bottlenecks in approval workflows.

3. Smart Email Ingestion and Routing

Many companies have large, decentralized systems that require support from first ingestion. Workday’s OCR is designed for standard single-invoice documents and single-inbox scenarios. Ascend AP complements these capabilities by automatically handling documents that contain multiple invoices and by ingesting invoices from multiple email inboxes without any manual intervention.

Ascend AP makes email ingestion seamless:

• Automatic Routing: Invoices are automatically directed to the correct team or inbox based on supplier or invoice rules.

• No Manual Forwarding: Ascend AP automatically routes incoming invoices to the correct queue or team based on rules, eliminating the need for IT to configure any manual email forwarding.

• Supplier Communication: Ascend AP enables two-way communication with suppliers directly from the platform, streamlining resolution of invoice discrepancies.

4. Built for Scalability and Complex Workflows

For growing businesses, AP processes need to scale without adding headcount. Ascend AP is designed to handle complexity with ease, offering:

• Rule-Based Automation: Ascend AP allows users to create document rules on demand, instantly applying existing rules to invoices for fast, accurate processing. This customization option ensures businesses can adapt Ascend AP to their existing workflows without disrupting current processes. Enabling additional customization with Ascend AP is easy for your team to manage if items change. Ascend AP allows your team to easily adjust invoice processing rules on the fly through configuration. This means Workday customers can introduce process changes quickly without the custom coding that might be required with an OCR-only approach.

• Support for Decentralized Teams: With multiple inboxes, team-specific routing, and collaborative tools, Ascend AP supports AP teams across different locations or departments.

5. Analytics and Tracking That Drive Results

Ascend AP doesn’t just automate—it empowers. With robust analytics and tracking features, AP teams gain full visibility into their workflows, including:

• Real-Time Reporting: Easily monitor invoice statuses, processing times, and exceptions.

• Performance Dashboards: Track KPIs to measure efficiency gains and identify bottlenecks.

• Audit Trail Insights: Every action is logged, ensuring compliance and simplifying audits.

These insights help teams continuously optimize processes, drive decision-making, and showcase the ROI of automation.

Transforming AP with Ascend AP

The bottom line is, accounts payable processes don’t need to be a bottleneck. By moving beyond basic OCR technology, Ascend AP empowers businesses to:

• Eliminate manual tasks and focus on exceptions.

• Improve accuracy and reduce errors.

• Scale efficiently without adding headcount.

Tools like Workday’s OCR provide a very helpful starting point for AP automation, and Ascend AP builds on that by delivering the additional automation and flexibility that modern AP teams need to truly thrive.

ERP Certified Partner

Ascend was built for Workday customers specifically, adding value for enterprises with AP processes beyond normal complexity. Our solution seamlessly integrates with Workday’s platform, ensuring smooth data flows, minimal implementation effort, and a consistent user experience. This partnership underscores our commitment to providing Workday users with an AP automation tool that enhances their existing ecosystem while delivering unmatched value.

Ready to experience true AP automation?

Learn how Ascend AP can transform your AP processes today.