Overview
The manual invoice review process is time-consuming and can lead to compliance misses. Spend Agent reviews invoices submitted by vendors in Billing Point against natural language billing guidelines uploaded against vendors by Onit X ELM clients.
It instantly reviews invoices, providing detailed AI summaries to clients within Onit X, enabling them to create highly informed decisions on their approval or dispute of invoices, or allowing the user to choose for the AI to automatically approve or dispute invoices as they come in.
Vendors on BillingPoint will be able to view any reasons for invoice rejection within BillingPoint once the spend agent has performed its review. This enables legal ops professionals and vendors to resolve compliance issues without manual rules or back-and-forth confusion.
NOTE: Spend Agent is an optional add-on feature available for purchase within Onit. Please contact your Onit representative for pricing details.
Core Features
- Invoice review (automated approval and rejection)
- Line-item level compliance checks
- Line-item violation commentary
- Automatic vendor dispute notes (in BillingPoint)
- Sentry mode (invoice alert pass-through only, no approval or rejection)
- Auto dispute mode (immediately dispute invoice with vendor, immediate invoice approval)
- Automatic expense matching
- AI summary issuance (detailed, human-readable output)
- Full audit/activity logging
User Benefits
OnitX ELM Users
Vendor invoices can be automatically reviewed against the uploaded vendor-specific billing guidelines, timekeeper rates, fee arrangements, receipts/expenses, and discounts, allowing users to spend less time on manual checks.
How it works:
- Upon submission via Billing Point, invoices are automatically processed by Spend Agent if enabled (Manual/Automatic mode).
- Spend Agent uses each review's most recently updated vendor billing guidelines, timekeeper rates, fee arrangements, receipts/expenses, and discounts.
- Spend Agent includes vendor-specific and default guidelines, and
Users can view a summary on every invoice that the spend agent has processed, indicating whether it is approved or disputed, so that compliance status is transparent—and they can understand why an invoice has been approved or rejected.
How it works:
- For any disputed invoice, the summary displays all relevant violated guidelines.
- Each violation is described in plain language (no technical/legal jargon).
- Users can see an “AI approved” badge if approved or receive “AI Insight” notifications with violations.
Users can view a complete activity log of all agent-reviewed invoices—including timestamps, statuses, and summary details—to satisfy internal audit requirements.
How it works:
- The activity log lists all invoices reviewed by Spend Agent and is sortable by date, vendor, and approval status.
- Users can export the log in CSV format.
Users can access the Spend Agent and all related features with existing Onit credentials and permissions, so there are no new logins to set up.
How it works:
- All access to Spend Agent features is controlled by the existing Onit login and role-based permissions.
- The interface clearly indicates if an error or processing failure occurred, so users are never uncertain about the status of an invoice.
- If the Spend Agent cannot review an invoice, the user is shown a clear error message with steps to resolve it where possible.
OnitX ELM Admins
Admins can set the Spend Agent to Sentry (manual) or Automatic (auto-approve/dispute) for each vendor.
How it works:
- Admins can enable/disable auto-processing of invoices based on Spend Agent review per vendor from a simple menu in settings; changes are recorded in the activity log; admins can also turn the agent on or off vendor by vendor.
Billing Point Vendors
Vendors can receive immediate feedback after submitting an invoice via Billing Point to know if it is approved or disputed.
How it works:
- Vendors submitting invoices receive status (Approved/Failed), and Spend Agent rejection reasons are visible.
Vendors receive clear reasons for disputes provided alongside the invoice so they can address issues and resubmit.
How it works:
- Spend Agent rejection reasons for each failed guideline are highlighted and provided in plain language with actionable suggestions.
Use Cases
Automatic Invoice Review and Approval:
- Vendor uploads invoice into billing point → Spend Agent reviews the invoice against billing guidelines/utility data → AI summary displaying approval and invoice is processed for payment or rejection of the invoice back to the vendor for correction.
The vendor can then fix issues with the invoice and resubmit it.
Manual Review:
- Onit users can view the invoice after the Spend Agent has reviewed it. The user can then consider the AI Approval Badge or AI Insight warnings outlined by the Spend Agent and decide on the next action step for the invoice.