Size the gap, then watch the first tower close it. Three agents hand a checked output to the next; a human still releases every payment. Scripted demo, nothing here calls a model.
On a $5.0bn business the gap is worth $17.8m a year.
Arithmetic, not modelling. Published medians multiplied by revenue, against the published world class comparator. Move the revenue and every number moves with it.
$250m$5bn$50bn
Finance at the median
$39.5m356 people · 0.79% of revenue
Finance at world class
$21.7mAbout 206 people, same workload
The gap, every year
$17.8m149 roles redeployed, not removed
Days to close
6.0 →2.6–3.935 to 57% shorter · $6.00 → $1.26 per payables invoice
What this number is
The distance between a median finance function and a world class one, on this revenue. It says nothing about how much of it any particular programme captures.
What it is not
Not a headcount plan. On the public record not one organisation running finance agents has taken the people out. What moved was cycle time, coverage and accuracy, with sign-off still human.
The honest test
Take one tower, price it against the median, and see whether the second one costs less than the first. The purchase-to-pay tower below is that first tower.
Medians from APQC Open Standards Benchmarking ($7.89 per $1,000 revenue, 71.1 FTE per $bn, 6.0 day close). World class comparators from The Hackett Group Digital World Class Finance, June 2025, and Ardent Partners State of ePayables 2025. Illustrative of scale, not a commitment.
01
Intake and extractionReads the invoice, whatever form it arrives in, and structures it
Idle
02
Coding and matchingGL and tax coding, purchase order and receipt match, duplicate control
Idle
03
Exception and queryChases the supplier, resolves the mismatch, escalates what it cannot
Idle
Human · Payment release
Nothing on this page pays a supplier without a person.
The agents prepare the decision and its evidence. The controller signs it.
No items awaiting release yet.
0Invoices processed
—Touchless to gate
—Avg agent cost per invoice
0Blocked by a control
0Human decisions signed
Demo of agents 01 to 03 of the twelve-agent finance chain. Deterministic and scripted: same invoice, same evidence, every time. Agent 07 flags rather than forces, agent 08 proposes and never posts, and this page never releases a payment on its own.