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Scenario · Finance & accounting · Supply chainO2C exceptions resolved within the day
The Order-to-Cash control tower
Every blocked order, disputed invoice and breached credit limit goes into one process: an agent diagnoses, a robot executes, and a human approves with one decision on Teams. Maestro™ orchestrates the whole flow.
Executive summary
O2C exceptions scattered across inboxes, Excel and SAP; revenue waits for manual decisions.
One flow in Maestro™: the agent gathers context, proposes the decision, the robot executes it.
Faster revenue realisation, lower DSO, full auditability of every decision.
SAP SD/FI, ServiceNow, Teams; UiPath agents + robots under Maestro™.
An FMCG distributor, 12,000 orders a month
6% of orders become exceptions: credit block, missing price, dispute. That is 720 cases a month, each touching a different team and a different system.
Nobody sees the whole picture. Sales calls finance, finance checks the credit spreadsheet, the customer waits. An order that could ship in the morning ships two days later.
The current reality
- SystemThe order blocks in SAP
- WaitingWaits in a review queue for half a day on average
- HumanAn analyst hunts for context in FD33, FBL5N and email
- HumanAsks the account owner about the client: calls, Teams, waiting
- Error riskA gut-feel decision without full payment history
- HumanManual release in VKM1 and a note in a spreadsheet
- WaitingInvoice and shipment pushed back 1-2 days
The hidden cost of the current process
Half a day of delay on each of 720 exceptions a month
- 300 hours a month that analysts and sales spend gathering context.
- Delayed invoicing raises DSO and ties up working capital every month.
- Credit decisions depend on who is on duty; no consistent thresholds, no trail.
The cost of doing nothing
You pay for the automation once; the manual process costs you again every month.
The process after automation
- AutomationA robot detects the block within a minute
- AutomationThe agent compiles limit, balance, history, open disputes
- AutomationCompany rules: low risk released automatically
- HumanHigh-value exceptions: one decision on Teams
- AutomationThe robot releases; the invoice goes out the same day
What the automation handles
- Detecting and classifying every exception 24/7
- Complete SAP data and client history in one view
- Automatic releases within credit-policy thresholds
When a human decides
- Decisions above value or risk thresholds
- Credit-policy changes and strategic exceptions
- Board-level client escalations
Before
After
Value model: example assumptions
Business benefits
- Revenue realised sooner, because low-risk orders no longer wait in a queue
- Consistent credit decisions based on agreed thresholds
- The O2C team absorbs 2× volume without headcount growth
- Every decision fully traceable for audit
Board-level KPIs affected
DSO · revenue realisation · cycle time · cost per order
What management gains
- A live view of how much revenue is stuck and why
- Measurable decision SLAs
- Predictability: bottlenecks visible before they grow
Estimate it for your organisation
An illustrative estimate based on your inputs. It models released capacity and is not a savings promise.
Systems in this scenario
Inputs
- SAP SD (VKM1)
- SAP FI (FD33, FBL5N)
- Outlook / Teams
Mientha agentic layer
- UiPath Agent Builder
- UiPath robots
- Maestro™ · Action Center
Core systems
- SAP
- ServiceNow
- Power BI / data warehouse
Human approval: Teams / Action Center
What we deliver
- Exception-process mapping with O2C owners
- Decision rules and thresholds agreed with finance
- Agent + robots + Maestro™ orchestration in your environment
- A decision panel on Teams and in Action Center
- Tests on real cases from recent months
- Monitoring, a weekly report and continuous threshold tuning
What we need to start
- A 4-8 week exception export (no personal data)
- Access to the O2C process owner for 2-3 workshops
- The current credit policy and approval thresholds
- A technical account for the SAP test environment
Implementation roadmap
Discovery
We map the process, data and exceptions with process owners.
Design
Target flow, business rules, approval thresholds.
Build
Agents, robots and integrations in your environment.
Validate
Tests on real cases, exception handling.
Go-live
Controlled rollout with human oversight.
Optimise
Monitoring, reporting and continuous improvement.
Duration depends on the number of systems and rules; a single process usually takes a few weeks.
Risk and controls
Autonomy under control
- Value thresholds: above the limit a human always decides
- A full audit trail: data, rule, decision, actor
- Permissions mirrored from SAP: the agent sees no more than the analyst
- An emergency stop and return to the manual process within a minute
Why now
- In this model every month of delay costs another ~€9,000
- Volumes grow faster than credit teams
- Competitors who release orders within an hour deliver sooner
Why this matters to:
Lower DSO and risk control without growing the team.
Exceptions are handled as they arise and no longer hold up shipments.
A solution on the standard UiPath platform, maintained in one place.
Questions we usually hear
SAP blocks the order but does not gather context, propose decisions or chase people. We automate the gap between block and decision.
Automatic releases only work within thresholds you set. Above them, a human always decides. Every case has a full trail.
That is why we start from 4-8 weeks of your data, and the rules mirror your credit policy.
When this may not be the right solution
- A dozen exceptions a month: a good checklist is enough
- Credit policy changes weekly and is not written down
- Client master data in SAP is incomplete: fix the data first
A question for your next board meeting
What is one day sooner worth across 720 blocked cases every month?
Solutions in the library
The same process as an implementation plan
The scenario shows the process with an AI agent on an example company. Library solutions describe the same or a neighbouring process with a value model and an implementation plan.
DSO sits above target and every department has a theory. Measure how many days each step actually costs.
See the solution Supply chainCustomer orders from PDFs and emails straight into the ERPCustomer POs still get retyped from PDFs into SAP and confirmed hours later.
See the solution Customer serviceOrder status answered before the customer asksEvery third customer contact asks where an order is; the answer already sits in SAP and the carrier portal.
See the solution Case studyFaster release of blocked ordersDelivered for FMCG clients
See the case study Case studyFast, consistent credit decisionsDelivered for FMCG clients
See the case study IndustryRetail & FMCGFor FMCG companies we have automated more than ten finance, credit and HR processes. Solutions for manufacturers, distributors and retailers: orders,…
See the industryWe deliver it through our service AI agents on Microsoft Teams.
The example company in this scenario works in Retail & FMCG.
How much revenue is waiting in your exception queue today?
A one-week export of blocked orders is enough. We will size the potential on your data.
Show us your O2C process