Perth-based software engineer and finance workflow automation consultant Avi Santoso is pleased to announce the publication of a roundup of his third-quarter 2026 research efforts. Over the last quarter, he explored how companies can use AI to streamline their finance-related workflows and improve their accounts payable and bookkeeping processes.
The first study explored how various invoice processing tools like Xero, Hubdoc, and Dext compare across various invoice files. He found that all three options totalled the invoices correctly, but only Hubdoc and Dext were able to capture the GST value on all of them, while Xero missed it. Furthermore, all three solutions misrecorded Australian dollar references on an overseas invoice that was payable in Japanese yen.
The second phase was Avi Santoso’s testing of Xero and Codex’s ability to conduct read-only bookkeeping workflows. The goal was to suggest account codes, flag missing receipts, and draft emails asking for documents. Under this approach, Santoso estimates that the review time would fall from 1 hour to around 5 minutes. He also noted that the systems didn’t post or match automatically, instead waiting for human approval.
The third study fine-tuned a small local AI model, Llama 3.1 8B, on 600 synthetic supplier bills. Its ability to sort expense bills into 8 expense categories rose from 70.5% to 99.5% on 200 held-back test examples.
Avi Santoso said the following about the testing:
“The general theme of this testing run follows a similar formula: The AI is tested against a specific task. Then, the person testing it writes down the limits. After that, the tester continues to review the AI’s outputs and fixes the processes before adding additional AI tools.
“This approach allows businesses to slowly ratchet up their AI capabilities without significantly compromising workflow integrity.”
Avi Santoso has made the full Q3 2026 summary available to read in his website’s library. Also available is a starter guide for finance teams looking to leverage AI and other technologies to improve operations in the future.
About Avi Santoso
Avi Santoso can be found in Perth. He is a workflow automation consultant who has built systems for Australia’s mining and resources sector.
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