Unclear campaign invoices slow down finance administration
The finance administration of a European media agency checks 18,000 campaign invoices a month, and inconsistent details delay the close.
- Media
- Accounting
Key metric
Time per billing clarification case
3518min
Average processing time per clarification case in campaign billing.
At a glance
Starting point
The media agency manages a large volume of TV, online and out-of-home campaigns for international clients. Around 18,000 campaign invoices are created each month and posted in a central ERP. About 40 percent contain special features such as discounts, subsequent rebookings or country-specific fees. A team of 18 employees in finance administration checks the invoices, resolves discrepancies with sales and campaign management and prepares the monthly close. On average they process around 1,000 invoices per working day out of a volume of about 18,000 a month, many of them with follow-up questions.
- 18,000
- Invoices per month
- 18
- Employees in the team
The challenge
Details on campaigns, discounts and special agreements are scattered across the booking system, client portals, emails and campaign managers’ spreadsheets. For around 7,200 invoices a month, finance administration has to check manually whether the amounts charged match the agreed terms. Researching a clarification case takes 35 minutes on average, because campaign notes, approvals and discount scales sit in different systems. Questions to sales and campaign management delay the close, and early-payment discount deadlines sometimes get tight. At the same time, controlling and internal audit are increasing the pressure to document invoices traceably.
Typical symptoms in the company
Why this remained unsolved
Finance administration had long accepted the problem as an unavoidable consequence of complex campaign models. A classic IT project seemed too costly, because several systems are involved and terms are often only recorded as free text. Attempts to work with additional mandatory fields in the ERP failed in day-to-day practice in sales and campaign management. At the same time, the issue was too big to solve with simple checklists: hundreds of hours went into clarification cases every month, but the causes differed from campaign to campaign and were hard to standardize.
Our solution
The agency introduced a workflow assistant that structures clarification cases in campaign billing and guides finance administration through research and documentation. The assistant reads billing data from the ERP and booking system, adds context from client portals and emails and creates a structured clarification case for every conspicuous invoice. Staff see suggestions on the cause, relevant terms and next steps, including pre-drafted questions to sales or campaign management. Once resolved, the assistant documents the decision and passes it to the ERP, so the close and reporting are based on consistent information.
Where generative AI comes in
Generative AI analyzes free text from campaign notes, emails and client portals, recognizes terms, discounts and special agreements and assigns them to the relevant invoices. It creates structured case descriptions and draft replies that specialists review and adjust, and it understands inconsistent wording as well as multilingual texts.
- An analysis component identifies conspicuous invoices based on amount deviations, missing terms and flags from controlling reports.
- A context component bundles campaign information from the booking system, client portals and emails and provides it in structured form for each invoice.
- A generative assistant creates case descriptions and draft questions that finance administration reviews and sends directly.
- A documentation component transfers resolved decisions to the ERP, adds the reasoning and makes them traceable for audit.
How the clarification workflow runs day to day
Review invoices
Every day, the workflow imports new campaign invoices from the ERP and booking system, flags conspicuous cases and shows them to finance administration in a prioritized list.
Bundle context
For each conspicuous invoice, the assistant gathers relevant campaign information from client portals, emails and spreadsheets and presents it in a compact overview.
Work the case
The generative assistant suggests the cause, next steps and draft questions. Staff review, adjust and send questions directly from the workflow.
Document the decision
After feedback from sales or campaign management, the workflow documents the decision, updates the terms fields and passes the invoice to the ERP.
Feed reporting
Finally, the workflow provides structured data on clarification reasons and lead times, so controlling and audit can produce analyses without extra rework.
Measured: after six months in production
Period: after six months in production.
| Metric | Value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Time per billing clarification caseKey metric | from 35 to 18 minutes per case | Time tracking before/aftermeasured |
| Clarification cases needing rework by specialistsQuality measure | around 15% of cases | Sampleestimated |
| Productive hours in the finance administration team | around 2,000 hours of clarification work saved per month | Projectionestimated |
Cost-effectiveness
The solution depends heavily on the quality of campaign master data and filing practices. If terms are only agreed verbally or recorded privately, the workflow cannot meaningfully support those cases.
Integration and operations
Transferability
The structured clarification workflow for campaign billing can be transferred to other areas where many business transactions with individual terms and scattered documents have to be checked. What matters is that the relevant information exists in digital systems or documents and that generative AI can meaningfully bundle it and make it understandable. Specialists keep decision authority but are relieved of repetitive research and writing work.
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