How many days does it take your team to close the month? If the answer involves downloading bank statements, hunting for supplier invoices in your inbox, and chasing payments with a spreadsheet of late payers, you're not short on people: you're short on process.
In Chile, much of that work already arrives as data: invoices from domestic suppliers are DTEs (electronic tax documents) in XML. The risk is automating without a design: an automated mistake repeats itself hundreds of times before anyone notices.
In this guide you'll learn which workflows to automate first, a five-step method for designing them, and four model workflows, each with its own KPI.
What is financial process automation?
Financial process automation is the use of rules, integrations, and alerts so that accounting and treasury tasks, such as recording invoices, reconciling the bank, collecting payments, or closing the month, run without manual data entry, with defined approvals, exceptions routed to a person, and evidence of every step for the audit trail.
It's a specific case of workflow automation, with one extra requirement: in accounting automation you have to be able to prove who approved what and with what supporting documentation.
Which finance processes to automate first
Priorities come from weighing impact (volume, hours, risk of errors or missed deadlines) against effort (data quality, integrations, process changes):
| Process | Impact | Effort | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank reconciliation | High: it happens daily | Low with the bank connected | First stage |
| Accounts payable with DTEs | High: volume and a legal deadline | Medium: requires up-to-date purchases and receipts | First stage |
| Tiered collections | High: it affects cash flow | Low | First stage |
| Control alerts | Medium to high | Low | In parallel, from day one |
| Month-end close and reporting | High | Medium: depends on the above | Second stage |
| Cash flow forecasting | Medium | High: requires history and judgment | Third stage |
Finance workflow design: the 5-step method
Finance workflow design means defining, before you configure anything, how each document moves, who decides, and what happens when something doesn't match:
- Map the actual workflow. Where the document comes in, who touches it, and where it sits waiting.
- Rules and master data. Simple rules ("if the invoice doesn't match the purchase order, it stops") and up-to-date data: payment terms, general ledger accounts, cost centers.
- Approvals and segregation of duties. Who approves based on amount or type of expense. Whoever creates a supplier or changes their bank account shouldn't approve or make payments.
- Exceptions. Who receives the cases that don't match, and within what timeframe. An exception without an owner is an error waiting to happen.
- Controls and evidence. Approvals, changes, and attachments on the same record, plus alerts when the workflow skips a step.
Accounts payable automation: from receiving the DTE to an approved payment
Accounts payable automation covers everything from the moment a supplier invoice arrives until it's paid and reconciled. In Chile, the core work isn't reading a PDF with OCR but matching documents and meeting deadlines. At companies running SAP, that cycle is usually handled by an add-on such as Tungsten Process Director.
Receiving supplier DTEs
In Odoo's Chilean localization, the email address registered with the SII (Chile's tax authority) is set up as the incoming server for DTEs: when an invoice arrives, Odoo creates it from the XML and sends the supplier an acknowledgment of receipt, a technical notice that is not the same as accepting the invoice. AI-powered digitization uses one credit per document, but XML files don't consume credits (checked in October 2026): OCR is reserved for whatever doesn't arrive as a DTE (see AI document processing), and issuing invoices is explained in electronic invoicing with Odoo. The Odoo features cited here are from version 19 and depend on your plan.
Matching against the purchase order and receipt
Three-way matching (3-way match) compares the invoice with the purchase order and with what was received at the warehouse. When you turn it on in Odoo Purchase, each bill shows whether it should be paid based on what was received, and it's flagged as an exception if someone edits it. Odoo doesn't block the payment: your workflow has to make sure of that.
Deadline to accept or dispute
Law 19,983 gives you 8 calendar days to dispute an invoice, and the SII counts them from the moment the tax authority received the document, not from when it reached your inbox. Without a dispute, the invoice is irrevocably accepted, so the workflow must send an alert before the deadline. Odoo lets you accept or dispute from the bill and notifies the supplier by email; make sure the event is also recorded in the SII's DTE Acceptance or Claim Registry.
- Trigger: the DTE arrives at the exchange email address.
- Rules: matching against the purchase order and receipt.
- Approval: by amount or cost center, before payment.
- Control: the "Bills not matched to a purchase order" and "Bills to pay X days past due" alerts.
- KPI: percentage of invoices that go through with no intervention.
Automated bank reconciliation
Automated bank reconciliation matches each transaction on the bank statement with its invoice, payment, or journal entry. Odoo includes default matching rules and reconciliation models for recurring transactions, such as bank fees. What's missing is getting the transactions to come in on their own: at KPB we work with Fintoc, our partner for bank connectivity and automated reconciliation in Odoo. Payment gateway collections are covered in integrating Odoo with payment methods, and closing out cash across multiple locations in software for restaurant groups.
- Trigger: a bank transaction comes in.
- Rules: amount, reference, and contact.
- Approval: only for differences and adjustments.
- Control: items left open for more than X days, with an owner.
- KPI: percentage reconciled automatically.
Automated collections and delinquency follow-up
Automated collections send tiered reminders based on how many days past due an invoice is, and route anything that requires judgment to a person. In Odoo it's set up with follow-up levels: each one defines how many days from the due date it kicks in, the channel (email, WhatsApp, SMS, or letter; the last three use IAP, or in-app purchase, credits), and whether it creates an activity for the account manager.
- Trigger: days since the due date.
- Rules: a heads-up before the due date, a formal email at 15 days, a phone call at 30.
- Approval: a person decides on a credit hold or outside collections.
- Control: the "Customers with invoices overdue beyond X time" and "Customers with no available credit" alerts.
- KPI: days sales outstanding (DSO).
If you bill based on construction progress, collection starts with the approved progress payment application (Odoo for construction companies).
Month-end close and financial reporting
The month-end close is the set of tasks that leaves a period complete, reconciled, and locked for reporting. Automating it is mostly about putting it in order: a checklist with owners, recurring journal entries, and a lock date that prevents changes to closed periods.
- Trigger: end of the month.
- Rules: every task has an owner and a deadline.
- Approval: the accountant or controller, before locking.
- Control: the period can't be closed with bank items still pending.
- KPI: business days to close.
Reporting shouldn't be put together by hand either: in Keep BI, the "Finance One-Pager," "Income Statement," "Collections," and "Payments" dashboards live inside Odoo.
Controls and alerts so automation doesn't hide errors
A workflow that fails silently is worse than a manual one. The control layer is automated threshold alerts. In Keep Checking, the catalog includes business alerts such as "Spending over the expense budget" and "Invoices disputed by the customer with no linked credit note," and data integrity alerts such as "Invoices rejected by the SII." Duplicate invoices or payments outside policy are set up as custom alerts.
A word of caution: in Odoo, date-based automation rules are checked every 4 hours by default; if a notification can't wait, have the event trigger it.
What not to automate, and KPIs to measure the results
Keep these as human decisions:
- Creating suppliers and changing bank account details, a classic entry point for fraud.
- Payments outside policy or above a set amount.
- Bad-debt write-offs and payment arrangements.
- Estimates that require judgment, such as provisions and closing adjustments.
And measure before and after automating:
| KPI | How it's calculated | Workflow |
|---|---|---|
| Days to close | Business days between month-end and the period lock | Close |
| DSO | Accounts receivable ÷ credit sales × days in the period | Collections |
| % reconciled automatically | Transactions reconciled with no intervention ÷ total | Reconciliation |
| % of invoices with no intervention | Invoices that pass matching with no exception ÷ invoices received | Accounts payable |
Why work with KPB Solutions
At KPB, an Odoo Gold Partner, we design the workflow before we configure it: Odoo implementation with SII certification, bank connectivity with Fintoc, Keep Checking alerts (installed in 7 days), and Keep BI dashboards. If approvals start out in email, a custom AI agent from Kersify turns them into tasks, with a person reviewing before anything is executed.
If you'd like to start with the controls, build your alert selection in the quote builder and request your quote. Or book a meeting and let's design your first automated finance workflow together.
