Agenda Day 1

AP is a great launching point for many a finance leader, as it offers the opportunity to gain deep financial ops knowledge, understand how money flows through the business and become familiar with internal controls and compliance. However, as AP managers look to move up the career path towards AP Director, GPO and even CFO, there are many skills to develop. In this panel discussion we’ve gathered three finance leaders to give their input on: 

• Traditional vs. modern pathways to CFO 
• Evolving your skill-set from tactical to strategic 
• Transitioning from managing processes to managing people and outcomes 
• The CFO’s role in shaping corporate strategy 
• Creating an action plan: How to make the leap 

For a long time, Autonomous AP was merely a pipedream; however, the evolution of AI has made it significantly more achievable. With its ability to manage exceptions, integrate with existing systems, and intuit context around supplier requests, it’s become easier (or at least more achievable) to create an end-to-end process.

Key Topics Include:

• How to select the right vendor 
• 360-degree preparation: Ensuring your employees and suppliers are ready for adoption 
• Managing change and creating a clear transformation roadmap from basic automation to full autonomy 
• How to tackle regulatory complexity and mitigate fraud 

Agentic AI is generating significant attention in automation, but what does it mean for Accounts Payable? While generative AI is gaining traction, adoption of agentic AI in finance is still in its early stages. SSON research shows that fewer than 20% of organizations feel prepared to implement AI in finance, with even fewer exploring agentic capabilities. In this session, we move beyond the hype to examine practical, real-world use cases of AI in AP, from conversational exception handling and invoice approvals to supplier inquiry automation and fraud detection. We'll also break down the differences between co-pilot-style assistants and fully autonomous agents, while addressing key challenges like hallucination risk, auditability, and governance.  

You might think your fraud prevention strategy is robust, but fraudsters are developing new methods of infiltration constantly, and the advent of AI has rapidly accelerated their innovation. Therefore, it is vital you fight fire with fire, and understand how AI can help with mitigating that risk. SSON’s research data shows that only 8% of GBS organizations have automated fraud detection and risk management in their AP process, demonstrating the pressing need to empower organizations with AI-powered risk detection tools. In this session, we will explore how machine learning models can flag suspicious patterns in real time, identify mismatches across systems, and recognize emerging fraud trends before they escalate. 

Spending too much time chasing approvals or matching invoices to POs? You're not alone. For many AP teams, invoice matching and approval workflows are manual, slow, and error-prone, but they don’t have to be. This session outlines five strategic approaches to automate invoice processing end-to-end, with a focus on scalability, compliance, and global standardization. Whether you're centralizing AP across regions or trying to reduce cycle times through intelligent automation, these methods will help you move from manual to touchless faster.