Stampli, the leading provider of AI-powered Accounts Payable and Procure-to-Pay (P2P) solutions, today announced the third anniversary of Advanced Vendor Management. This software, which enables customers to build vendor onboarding workflows, validate document compliance, and provide payment visibility to vendors, is powered by Billy, an AI that functions as an employee for Stampli’s customers.
Billy is the key efficiency driver for Stampli’s entire platform. Introduced in 2015 as the first embedded AI for Accounts Payable, Billy has since amassed the equivalent of 83 million human-hours of experience. Billy significantly reduces workloads across every step of the procure-to-pay process, from the intake of employee purchase requests through the coding, PO matching and paying of invoices.
Not an Agent — an AI Employee
While many providers in the procure-to-pay space are introducing siloed AI agents to perform narrow tasks in isolation, Stampli has taken a different approach. Billy is a proprietary business reasoning AI trained on billions of decision points across every aspect of P2P. It helps operate every task with the full context of a customer’s processes, preferences and history.
Within Advanced Vendor Management, Billy interacts directly with transactional and vendor data to ensure accuracy, compliance, and readiness. This includes requesting and verifying tax and compliance documentation such as W-9s; validating vendor details before payment; and confirms that payments are audit-ready before execution.
Within Stampli, Billy also connects receipts to the appropriate vendor and expense record, and enforces alignment with company policy and ERP structure. These coordinated actions occur continuously within customer workflows, eliminating the need for manual updates or external tools. Before a transaction is completed, Billy validates all relevant data points to preserve accuracy and audit readiness.
In an interview last year with Construction Dive, Milissa Douglas, Controller at Cork Howard Construction, reported that Billy has reduced the time and effort required to manage and track the company’s many invoices. “Billy fills about 90% of the information automatically for you,” she said. “Really, all you have to do is verify that he did his job correctly. We went from keying all the information in, to looking up and all the information being there already. It’s been a great experience for us.”
The Myth of “Touchless” in AP
The rise of automation in finance operations has sparked a surge in marketing promises of “touchless” and “agent” solutions. However, “touchless” solutions only live up to their name for extremely simplistic single-item expenses. For purchases with any level of complexity (such as those with multiple items, with PO matching requirements, or with multi-dimensional cost accounting), human intervention is no less reduced in those platforms. Similarly, most “agents” only operated isolated steps in the much larger procure-to-pay process in those platforms, with adjacent steps still requiring manual labor.
Stampli’s Leading AI, Integrated with Your ERP
Stampli’s financial operations platform lets customers structure sophisticated processes that connect procurement, invoice management, payments and credit card purchases. The platform connects directly with leading ERP systems, providing consistent visibility and control without requiring ERP reconfiguration.
The architecture of Stampli’s business reasoning model ensures that Billy views purchases requests, invoices, vendor information, payments, and expenses as linked throughout the financial lifecycle. This gives Stampli customers real-time visibility into and control over compliance and spending across departments, subsidiaries, and currencies.
