Creating Competitive Advantage & Increasing Customer Value With The Latest AI Advancements

There must be an easier way to do it

The phrase has been repeated as a key idea at Tripletex ever since the solution was developed back in 2002. Today, that still remains their goal – an easier everyday life for Norwegian companies.

Tripletex is Norway’s most used cloud-based accounting system with over 80,000 customers. In Tripletex you get everything needed in one system – it’s the ‘one-stop shop’ for simplifying everyday life. The system consists of various modules for accounting, invoicing, payroll, timekeeping, and projects, all seamlessly integrated. Customers only choose and pay for the modules they need. This way, Tripletex is suitable for every company within the SMB market. 

The main strengths of Tripletex are smart and intuitive solutions that everyone understands, automation, and good opportunities to connect Tripletex to other systems you may use. Tripletex gives its users a more efficient way of working as they don’t have to put the same information into various systems. With Tripletex, you can also work with your accountant if you have externalized bookkeeping, and you can easily set up how much the accountant should do and what your company should do itself.

JORID Trandem – Product Owner – Tripletex AS

Incorporating the latest technology to create the best software

Ever since the beginning of Tripletex, the company’s goal has been to make everyday life easier with modern technology. And what Tripletex has noticed is that simplification is surprisingly complicated. They have been doing it for years and are still not done – there is always something to improve as the world keeps changing.

“Tripletex is created by people with a technical background so utilizing the latest technologies as a means to provide better benefits and experiences for customers has always been highly important to us. We want to create software that is the best by using the best technological advancements – continually making our software better and more efficient.”

To provide the best possible solution for its customers, Tripletex incorporates smart technological innovations to make manual processes less heavy and time-consuming. This is where automation and AI come into play. With AI, manual tasks can be automated – making the process more efficient and creating significant time savings.

Automating purchase invoice processing

“We always scout new technologies on the market and what we can incorporate into Tripletex. When looking for new solutions we always look internationally as well and our team noticed that okay this could be a game-changer, AI is going to be used for accounting and it will have a huge impact on effectiveness.”

Taking a look at the time-consuming manual processes of accounting the Tripletex team was aware that purchase invoice processing takes a lot of time. It’s time-consuming, yet doesn’t provide much additional value to the customers.

“The problem we saw was that customers use a lot of time to post incoming invoices! registering cost accounts, department  and project. These manual tasks can easily be automated, and our customers can spend their time on more value-adding tasks.”

Tripletex knew that this would be an important task to simplify with the help of automation. It would make the process easier, and more efficient and also make accounting more enjoyable. Accountants have always used a big chunk of their time to process invoices but there hasn’t been a solution like this available before. Being able to incorporate AI into invoice processing brings a huge relief.

Also when looking at the bigger picture – creating a solution like this will help maintain Tripletex’s competitive advantage in the Norwegian market. Accounting automation solutions are increasing on the market and customers are expecting more advanced solutions. Using FabricAI’s AI models supports Tripletex’s position as the trailblazer among Norwegian financial management software providers.

“In regards to invoicing this has been a must-have if we’re going to continue to be in the front of technology and have a system that the customers will still love in three years to come. Automation like this is something that we must have in place so that we have a system that lets the accountants be as efficient as they can be.”

The big decision between building and buying

After deciding that a solution like this should be created – there are generally two options that the company can choose from – to build or to buy.

“AI models are far more complex than you might think and it’s a big area, it’s important to do it right. If you were to do it on your own you would have to have a significant amount of resources aimed to only focus on that very specific domain.“

Building a solution like this takes a lot of time and money. The developers and the team have to be highly skilled in this niche and devote a long period of time to creating a solution that works at a decent level. Usually, this would mean that the company would have to recruit additional skilled people so that the project doesn’t take up too many resources from other important projects. Recruiting is expensive and it takes time before the recruit gets to the point where they start to develop the solution.

“We noticed that this is an area where we have specialists but we realized that we are not ‘the’ specialists in this niche and we should rather find someone that already is. Even though we did have the data – we didn’t have the time, detailed knowledge, or resources to get the most out of it. Buying the solution would bring us the best results.”

Choosing FabricAI as the AI provider

Choosing your AI partner is an important step in the process. Not all AI is the same or provides similar results. You need to have a good understanding of how things work and what the differences are between solutions and AI models so that the data truly provides value. In addition, it’s crucial to have mutual understanding and trust that the provider has the right solution for you. 

Almost all automation solutions on the market focus on automating data entry (account numbers, dimensions, VAT code, etc.). FabricAI’s Progressive Automation takes automation further and its purpose is to reduce the number of invoices for the accountant to process, and not just to prefill information on purchase invoices

“It takes both time, resources, and a great deal of knowledge to build a good and functioning AI model. In addition, the integration between the systems needs to be seamless.”

After contemplating their options and evaluating different providers Tripletex chose FabricAI as their partner for purchase invoice processing automation. 

In comparison to different AI providers, FabricAI was the one with the most advanced AI models tailored for purchase invoice processing and a visionary outlook on developing it even further. 

“When contemplating the providers we learned that Finland has come further than Norway regarding technological advancements in the public sector and the accounting software market. It was a natural choice to pick a provider from the most advanced market. ”

“FabricAI is an entrepreneurial, young, forward-leaning company that pushes forward to create change. Their drive truly impressed us.”

FabricAI has been building purchase invoice automation solutions for some years now and knows what works and what does not. Having been through the challenges and pain points already FabricAI was able to make sure that major obstacles were avoided. 

Building a solution like this is not always easy 

What’s still important to remember is that building a custom AI solution doesn’t happen overnight – it requires time and effort from both parties. Our teams worked seamlessly together but there still were some bumps in the road. With customized solutions, there doesn’t exist a ready-made template that is just copy-pasted into the customers’ software. Building it requires getting to understand the customer’s software and having in-depth planning with their developers and product managers. 

“One of the tricky parts was making the customer interface in a way that Tripletex customers will love to use and understand it. Artificial knowledge like this was completely new to us, so determining what should be communicated to our customers during the process has been challenging. We always want to keep them informed but we don’t want to scare them away while the end product is not ready yet.”

Tripletex found the implementation process as something that definitely requires work from both teams but is worthwhile. 

From an idea to a ready solution in just 8 months

Creating the solution from scratch in just 8 months took a lot of discussions, overcoming obstacles, and sharing experiences between Tripletex and FabricAI. Together during this time period, we went through the following process:  

  1. Concept creation
  2. Planning 
  3. Knowledge sharing and brainstorming
  4. Analyzing key market learnings 
  5. Creating go-to-market strategy
  6. Development execution and iteration
  7. Product launch!

The teams had weekly meetings, in-person workshops in Norway, and additional calls whenever Tripletex felt like they wanted additional support in the process. Even though digital meetings are great and enable an immediate way to stay in touch, we found meeting up in-person highly valuable.

“I think the collaboration has been really good and it has always been easy letting the other party know if there is something we need or is holding us back or taking longer than anticipated. We’re always there for each other.”

Now that the solution is published Tripletex can provide more efficient invoice processing for over 80  000 customers in Norway. 

The automation solution created a good foundation for making accounting more efficient

Now having published the progressive invoice automation to customers is not the end of our story with FabricAI – it is only the beginning.

“We have a good foundation to build on and we have done so much work to get the integration in place. Now we can take a breather since the biggest burden is off our shoulders. Moving forward, we can finally start building on top of that and creating more value. It has been a big milestone to get here and we can finally provide functionality for our customers, which is inspiring.”

Together we are next focusing on

  • even better project predictions for customers
  • having multiple accounts for invoices
  • including PDF invoices beside the structural EHF formats
  • inspiring more users to use invoice automation

With the help of FabricAI, Tripletex now has a solid automation base for invoice automation that we can improve on top of.

“Having done this now is so important to us. People are just starting to use it but in a few years, we will be in a time where people use AI more than ever before. It is really important to have it working already so we can guarantee that we continue to stay on top of the game and provide the best solutions for our customers.”

Collaboration with FabricAI

In a project like this, smooth collaboration and communication make a world of a difference.

“Partnering with FabricAI was a great choice and we have been so happy with our collaboration. They have the same flat structure as we do and it makes them easy to work with. If you need someone you don’t face slow processes due to hierarchy or have to wait a lot for decisions to be done. Says Tripletex Product Owner, Jorid Trandem

“From the beginning, it has been clear that this cooperation is a match made in heaven. By close cooperation and joining our forces, we have been able to take huge steps forward in a short time. We have been sharing knowledge and market learnings from both Finland and Norway and have been able to tap into the best niche knowledge from both of our teams. This has allowed us to build truly powerful automation straight into the Tripletex UI.” Says FabricAI Head of Partnerships, Tuukka Seeslahti.

Lastly, what advice would Tripletex give to others considering buying invoice automation?

“To start early! Have recurring meetings. We have always shared meetings, plans, and information. Be open and try to have someone that has time to understand how FabricAI works and how the model works. Take time  to explain to FabricAI how your company and software work. They need the understanding to work smoothly together. Both parties can provide a lot of insights to each other and learn together along the way. Start early and take enough time to do valuable work.”

The best time to incorporate invoice automation is now.

There’s no denying that automation will increase its presence in accounting. Intelligent automation solutions are used more and more and customers are already expecting them.  As an accounting software provider, the best time to react is now.

FabricAI’s AI Inside automation is

  • Easily tailored to your needs
  • Offers the highest level of automation
  • Is already trusted and used by over 25 000 companies

Read more about AI Inside.

WANT TO HEAR MORE?
TUUKKA
Seeslahti
tuukka@fabricai.fi
+358400585018