Manufacturing & Industrial EquipmentCanada & UAE

Automated Supply Chain Invoicing & Legacy ERP Integration

An industrial equipment manufacturer automated invoice extraction from hundreds of supplier PDFs, bridging legacy on-prem ERP software with Microsoft Teams via Power Automate RPA bots.

120+ hrsMonthly Accounting Hours Saved

98.5%Automated Straight-Through Processing

< 5 minsInvoice Processing Time (down from 2 days)

9xFirst-Year Implementation ROI

01. Operational Challenge

Manual Invoice Typing into 20-Year-Old Legacy ERP Software

The accounting department spent entire days manually reading supplier invoice emails and re-typing invoice line items into a legacy desktop ERP that lacked modern REST APIs.

Legacy / Existing Environment:

On-premises legacy desktop ERP client running on Windows virtual machines with manual Excel reconciliation.

Key Friction Points:

Over 800 supplier invoices manually keyed in every month

Frequent data entry errors causing payment delays and supplier disputes

Zero automated approval visibility for plant managers

02. Solution Architecture

Power Automate Desktop RPA with AI Builder Form Extraction

Empathy Technologies implemented an AI Builder model to extract invoice metadata from PDF attachments, validated totals automatically, and used Power Automate Desktop unattended RPA bots to enter data directly into the legacy ERP UI.

Microsoft Technology Stack:

Microsoft Power Automate Desktop (RPA)Power Automate Cloud FlowsAI Builder Document Processing ModelsMicrosoft Teams Adaptive Card ApprovalsOn-Premises Data Gateway

Architecture Guardrails:

Unattended bot execution running on dedicated Azure virtual machines

Automated exception flagging when purchase order totals do not match

Managers approve invoices directly inside Microsoft Teams chat

03. Implementation BlueprintTimeline: 6 Weeks (Milestone Delivery)

Staged Milestone Execution

Phase 1: Invoice Template Training & AI ModelingWeeks 1–2

Trained AI Builder models on 500+ historical supplier invoice layouts.

Phase 2: Desktop RPA Automation ScriptingWeeks 3–4

Engineered robust desktop keystroke and UI automation for the legacy ERP.

Phase 3: Teams Approvals & Exception HandlingWeek 5

Try-Catch error telemetry, manager Adaptive Cards, and mismatch alerts.

Phase 4: Pilot Testing & Enterprise RolloutWeek 6

Unattended production deployment, hypercare monitoring, and accounting handover.

04. Measurable Outcomes

Long-Term Business Impact

Accounting team transitioned from manual data entry to strategic vendor management.

Supplier invoice processing errors reduced to virtually zero.

Extended the useful operational life of the legacy ERP without a multi-million-dollar replacement.

“The RPA bot processes our supplier invoices 24/7 without a single keystroke error. It paid for itself in less than 3 months.”

Director of FinanceIndustrial Manufacturing Enterprise

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