Your AP team begins the day with 200 emails containing supplier payment requests, invoice inquiries, and escalations that should have been addressed days ago. The three-person Accounts Payable Team spends five hours working through the emails and determining which ones require immediate action.
This is the reality of many AP professionals. Email has become the new invoice, but the inbox was not built to handle the complexity of accounts payable processing. Escalations from vendors are being missed. Payment requests are being ignored. Your team is jumping between several systems when they really need only one to manage a single issue.
What this actually costs you
Your AP inbox is your daily tool. This is also where small problems become big problems. VIP vendor payments are only visible when they are already two weeks past due, and escalations come and go, disappearing into the list of emails. Your team cannot distinguish between what is urgent and what can actually wait.
The impact is strained supplier relationships, compliance issues, duplicate payments falling through the cracks, and highly skilled teams spending valuable time managing emails rather than making the process better.
How AppZen Inbox AP Service Center handles what fills your inbox every day
AppZen’s Inbox AP Service Center converts your disorganized email flow into an intelligent and organized service center where AI reads your emails, classifies them instantly, and sends them to the person handling the use cases that consume your team's time every day. Below are some of the use cases where Inbox AP Service Center automates processes and frees your team to focus on higher-value work:
Payment status Inquiries: AP teams handle a constant stream of vendor payment status inquiries, often asking, “Where is my payment?” Each request requires manual effort to look up information in the ERP system and craft a response, pulling valuable time away from higher-value work. Payment data is automatically retrieved, and accurate, consistent responses are sent instantly, reducing manual effort and improving vendor communication.
Tax form (W-9) compliance: Vendors frequently email W-9 tax forms as attachments, creating a multi-step manual process for AP teams. This includes opening the email, reviewing the attachment, identifying the form type, extracting tax details, confirming receipt, routing the information to procurement, and tracking compliance. Emails are automatically identified as tax forms, recognized as W-9s, key vendor information is extracted, and the request is routed to the appropriate team within 1 to 2 minutes.
Bank account change requests: Without verification protocols, these requests pose a significant risk of wire fraud. High-risk requests are automatically flagged, approval workflows are triggered, and fraud is prevented in 2 minutes. This can be compared to a manual process that typically takes 2 to 4 hours per request.
Vendor statement reconciliation: When vendor statements are received, AP teams manually review invoices in the ERP to identify discrepancies and credits, a time-consuming process that pulls resources away from higher-value work. Statements are automatically reconciled against the ERP and vendors receive complete payment status responses in minutes, significantly reducing manual effort and cycle time.
Duplicate invoice detection: The risk of double payment arises when the same invoice is submitted through different channels. Duplicate invoices are identified at intake and flagged before entering the workflow, preventing an average of 4 double payments annually and saving significant recovery costs.
Missing PO: For organizations with “No PO, No Pay” policies, checking all invoices for a PO number is labor-intensive. Missing PO numbers are automatically detected, invoices are returned to the supplier, and the reason for the return is communicated in 1 minute, compared with 2 to 4 hours manually.
With its clear metrics around message volume, response time, and vendor priorities, you’ll spot potential problems before they occur. Your team is freed to focus on tasks that require human judgment, such as managing relationships with suppliers and optimizing processes, leaving the categorization tasks to the AI Agents.
What this looks like in practice
Georgetown University’s AP team processes 5,000 emails monthly from over 25,000 suppliers. They cut their processing time by 74% and gave the team back a third of their time; enough to redirect one full-time employee to strategic projects. As their AP Manager put it: “Now that emails are organized by category, we can get to the root of a request faster and more efficiently in just a few clicks.”
A leading medical enterprise managing 15,000 invoices annually across US and European offices saved 50% of their time by automatically categorizing emails and filtering out the 40% that were spam or junk. One full-time employee now focuses on supplier strategy instead of manually querying information across systems.
“Historically, we've had to check invoice statuses one by one in Coupa manually. With AppZen Inbox, seeing a complete summary of every invoice in one place is very helpful and saves a huge chunk of time.” - Accounts Payable Manager
Stop letting email run your AP team
Your team has far better things to do with their time than waste half their workday digging through their inbox. Inbox AP Service Center can eliminate over 25 hours per week per team member by automating vendor inquiry workflows from start to finish.
Results are delivered in minutes, not months. No deployment required. No integration headaches. Just instant relief from email overload.
Want to see how it works? Contact us today to request a live demo of the Inbox AP Service Center.
