Achieve Financial Compliance and Faster Reporting with Automation
Process automation ensures compliance by creating an immutable audit trail for every financial transaction and flagging exceptions instantly. It produces reports faster by extracting data from source documents in seconds and running scheduled, error-free calculations automatically.
This approach is for businesses managing data across multiple systems like bank feeds, PDF invoices, and CRMs that require auditable reconciliation. It is not for simple bookkeeping, but for creating a single source of truth for financial data that must meet regulatory standards.
We built an automated accounts payable system for a 25-person construction supplier processing over 500 invoices monthly from scanned PDFs. The system went live in three weeks, reducing their monthly close process from four days to just three hours.
What Problem Does This Solve?
Many teams start by managing financial reconciliation in spreadsheets. A 15-person wealth management firm we worked with manually exported trade confirmations from their custodian and client data from their CRM into Excel. This multi-day process was prone to copy-paste errors, creating significant risk in their SEC compliance reporting. A single transposed digit in a trade log could trigger a deficiency letter.
Moving to a tool like QuickBooks Online helps with general ledger tasks but fails at custom compliance workflows. QBO cannot ingest and categorize data from unstructured PDF trade confirmations to build the specific reports an auditor requires. Its audit log tracks logins and entry changes but doesn't show the full reconciliation history across external systems, making it difficult to prove procedural compliance.
The fundamental issue is that off-the-shelf tools are built for standard bookkeeping, not for creating auditable, automated workflows that span multiple platforms unique to your industry. They force a human to be the integration layer, which introduces the exact delays and errors that regulators scrutinize.
How Does It Work?
We start by building a data ingestion pipeline on AWS Lambda that triggers whenever a new document, like an invoice or bank statement, is uploaded to a secure S3 bucket. We use an OCR engine combined with the Claude API to read the document and extract structured data as a JSON object. This process takes under 8 seconds per page and achieves over 99.8% accuracy on key fields, eliminating manual entry.
The extracted JSON data is written to a dedicated table in a Supabase database, creating a permanent, raw record of every source document. A scheduled Python job then runs validation and reconciliation logic. Using the httpx library for async API calls, it cross-references this data against records in your ERP or CRM, flagging any mismatch between an invoice and a purchase order for review.
We then build a secure reporting API using FastAPI. This gives your team on-demand access to compliance reports that used to take days to compile manually. Every step in the process, from ingestion to validation, is logged with `structlog` to a separate audit table in Supabase. This creates the immutable, timestamped trail needed to satisfy financial auditors. The system can process over 2,000 documents per month with this architecture.
The entire service is deployed serverlessly, meaning it scales automatically and typically costs under $40 per month in AWS hosting fees. We configure CloudWatch alarms to send a Slack notification if any part of the process fails. The full build, from discovery to deployment, is completed in a fixed 3-week timeline.
What Are the Key Benefits?
Close Your Books in Hours, Not Days
A 3-week build delivers a system that can run a monthly close process in under 2 hours, a significant reduction from the 4-5 days of manual work.
Pay for the Build, Not by the Seat
One fixed-price engagement for a system you own. Avoid the recurring monthly fees of specialized finance automation software that charge per user.
You Own the Code and Infrastructure
We deliver the full Python source code to your GitHub repo and deploy on your cloud account. You are never locked into a proprietary platform.
Generate an Audit Trail Automatically
Every action is logged with timestamps in Supabase. When auditors ask for records, you generate a report in seconds, not by searching through emails.
Connects to Your Existing General Ledger
The system pushes validated, reconciled data directly into QuickBooks Online, Xero, or your ERP via their native APIs, eliminating manual journal entries.
What Does the Process Look Like?
System Mapping (Week 1)
You provide read-access to source systems and sample documents. We deliver a detailed process map and data schema for your approval before writing any code.
Core Logic Build (Week 2)
We write the Python code for data extraction, validation, and reconciliation. You receive access to a staging environment to test the workflow with your data.
Integration and Deployment (Week 3)
We connect the system to your live data sources and general ledger. You receive credentials, API documentation, and a walkthrough of the production environment.
Monitoring and Handoff (Week 4+)
We monitor the live system for 30 days to handle edge cases. You receive a final runbook, and we transition to an optional flat-rate monthly support plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does a custom financial automation system cost?
- Pricing is based on a fixed project scope. The cost depends on the number of document types, API integrations, and the complexity of your business rules. A typical project integrating two to three systems takes three to four weeks. We provide a firm, fixed-price quote after our initial discovery call. Book a call at cal.com/syntora/discover to discuss your specific needs.
- What happens if an invoice fails to process or an API is down?
- The system is built to fail gracefully. A failed document is moved to an exception queue, and a Slack alert is sent to your team with the error details. API calls use exponential backoff to retry connections automatically. No data is ever lost; it is flagged for manual review, ensuring process integrity.
- How is this different from using a tool like Bill.com or Dext?
- Bill.com and Dext are excellent SaaS products for standardized AP/AR workflows. Syntora builds custom systems for processes they do not cover, like multi-system reconciliation, industry-specific compliance reporting, or revenue recognition logic unique to your business. We often integrate with these tools, pushing clean data into them rather than replacing them.
- How do you handle sensitive financial data?
- The system is deployed entirely within your own cloud infrastructure (AWS). Syntora never stores your data. We build with role-based access controls, and all data is encrypted in transit and at rest using standard AWS services. You retain full ownership and control over your infrastructure and all your sensitive financial information.
- How accurate is the data extraction from PDF invoices and statements?
- Using the Claude API for extraction, we consistently achieve over 99.5% accuracy on semi-structured documents. For documents with highly variable formats, we can build a human-in-the-loop validation step. Any extraction with a confidence score below 95% is flagged for a quick, one-click approval by your team before it enters the ledger.
- How much of my team's time is needed during the build process?
- We require one point of contact for 3-4 hours in the first week for discovery and system access. After that, we need about 1-2 hours per week for testing and feedback. Our process is designed to be a low-lift engagement for you, as we handle all the engineering and project management.
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