EY automates customer payment processing using Power Platform, saving 230,000 hours annually

A small team of four developers led by Stef Pieterse spent less than four months to develop a new application. The application, known as PowerMatch, is a canvas app with Power Automate flows used to match and clear incoming customer payments. PowerMatch stores its data in Dataverse and uses AI Builder models to extract key information from payments and remittance advices (payment notifications).

To simplify integration of the Power Platform system with SAP, the team used the used the pre-built SAP connectors available with Power Platform. Every five minutes, PowerMatch pulls new payments that have been uploaded in SAP and syncs the open invoices, customers, and related accounting data. These flows also update PowerMatch when users work in SAP directly so that both SAP and PowerMatch are always 100% in sync.

For payments that do not automatically match and clear in SAP, PowerMatch extracts the key attributes from the payment information (e.g., invoice number(s), customer name, bank account number) using custom AI Builder entity extraction models. The attributes are then used in a 14-step matching algorithm that tries to find the matching invoice(s) based on pre-defined business rules using an Office Script.

For matches with a high certainty, PowerMatch automatically matches and clears the payment and invoice(s) in SAP. Payments with a lower matching certainty or without a match are presented in PowerMatch alongside all the relevant information collected. Examples of lower matching certainties include instances where multiple possible matches are found, a customer is found with no matching invoice, or partial payments that do not match the invoice(s). In PowerMatch, these lower certainty instances can now be matched and cleared by the AR team with only four button clicks.

“To efficiently run a complex finance process requires a huge number of customization and integration options, which we were able to accomplish using Power Platform”, says Stef Pieterse. “PowerMatch’s deep integration into SAP is a testimony to how effective Power Platform can be in complementing SAP and delivering business value.”

PowerMatch also provides the functionality to re-apply previously cleared payments. The AR team only has to provide the new invoice number(s) and the backend flows take care of the time-consuming task to reverse the existing SAP documents and reapply the payments to the new invoice(s).

PowerMatch is able to process a high volume of payments simultaneously. The end-to-end runtime, from the start of data sync to when the payments are automatically matched and cleared in SAP is less than ten minutes for a batch of 300 payments.

PowerMatch is built to be simple and intuitive — with only two screens, the AR team can efficiently manage incoming payments and perform all the needed posting scenarios. In the first screen, which serves as the landing page, the AR team gets a full view of bank statements posted, payments needed to be cleared, and overall metrics related to the status of payments.

Every payment that has not been automatically matched and cleared goes through the same four-step process:

1. The AR team confirms the matching result (i.e., the research performed by the App on the payment and the proposal on how it should be matched). 
2. The team selects the clearing options. 
3. Any offsets (if applicable) are added.
4. The document is submitted.

This process is generic and works for all the posting scenarios. The steps the AR team need to take in PowerMatch take no more than two minutes per payment. This represents a huge reduction in time spent compared to the process before PowerMatch since the research of the payment has been eliminated from the manual process.

Benefits achieved using Power Apps

With the deployment of PowerMatch, EY has been able to increase the percentage of payments automatically matched and cleared from 30% to 80%, achieving the planned goal. Additionally, 15% of payments are able to be automatically matched with respective invoice, but manually cleared. As a result, only 5% of payments need to be manually matched and cleared. This is an impressive accomplishment given that 70% of payments needed to be manually matched and cleared prior to PowerMatch.

As a result of the automation and the more efficient process, PowerMatch is expected to save approximately 230,000 hours per annum globally for EY.Time savings is not the only benefit of PowerMatch. Due to the reduced manual processing needed, EY is expecting increased accuracy in payment processing, resulting in an estimated 50% reduction in re-bookings.

Additionally, the training time needed for a member of the finance team to become proficient in payment processing has been significantly reduced from two weeks to two days. This is primarily due to PowerMatch’s simple and intuitive functionality, as well as the fact that SAP training is no longer needed.

“PowerMatch has revolutionized how EY handles the cash application process, resulting in faster and more accurate information,” says Marie Sanders. “The fact that we were able to build the PowerMatch app in less than four months is amazing and really due to the low code development platform we used.“

PowerMatch has been successfully deployed in Canada, Italy and the United Kingdom, and is expected to be deployed globally in phases up until end of 2025.

Additional projects in pipeline for EY using Power Platform

EY have several new projects, both in progress and in pipeline, that are building on logic used in  PowerMatch. At the core of each project is the deep integration achieved with Power Platform and EYs SAP system.

Ajith explains why EY is so keen on using the Power Platform. “EY is a large complex organization with many stakeholders located in many geographies. SAP offers us the degree of rigidity, scalability, governance, and security that we as EY need at a macro level. However, we also need to be flexible, agile and deal with numerous different inputs and scenarios on an ongoing basis – and this is where Power Platform has been so effective.”

“Complementing SAP with the Microsoft Power Platform offers us the ability to be flexible, develop and build applications within a short timeframe, yet still meeting our overall stringent security requirements,” says Ajith. “With continuously changing business needs we are finding that the Power Platform offers us the ability to build things quickly in a cost-effective manner. We see lots of opportunities in the horizon to leverage Power Platform.”