Epicor AP Automation: Accounts Payable Automation Software for Epicor Kinetic

What Epicor accounts payable automation actually means

Epicor accounts payable automation means moving supplier invoices through capture, coding, approval, and payment with as little manual work as possible while Epicor Kinetic stays your system of record. Epicor is good at the ledger side of this. Through its Financial Management module it stores supplier records, records AP invoices, runs check and ACH payments through Epicor Payment Exchange, and produces an aged payables report. What it was never built to do on its own is read an invoice for you or route a flexible approval chain. For that, Epicor sells a separate product, Epicor ECM (the platform formerly known as DocStar), which adds OCR capture and document workflow but comes as its own license and implementation. Out of the box, native Kinetic AP is manual invoice entry.

AutoPayables is a lighter layer focused on the two parts Kinetic leaves to people. Forward or upload an invoice at the top of this page and the AI reads the supplier, invoice number, dates, line items, and total, even on the non-PO and odd-layout bills that would otherwise be keyed in by hand. The invoice then moves through an approval workflow you control and, once approved, syncs into Epicor Kinetic as an AP invoice with the supplier and GL coding already in place.

Where Epicor native AP slows down

The Financial Management module is dependable for recording and paying invoices, but a few gaps cost finance teams time every week. First, there is no OCR or AI capture in core Kinetic, so someone retypes every invoice. Second, real multi-level approval routing with exceptions, reminders, and escalation is not native; you either build it as an ECM workflow project or run sign-off over email. Third, invoice status lives across several screens, so checking whether a bill was approved means clicking around rather than reading one queue. And because purchase orders, receipts, and invoices sit in different places, staff switch around to tie a bill back to its PO.

The result is that plenty of Epicor shops have a capable ERP but still run a manual front end: stacks of paper or PDF invoices, AP invoice entry, and approvals chased over email. Adding a dedicated capture and approval layer closes that gap without changing anything Epicor already does well, and without committing to a full document-management rollout for AP alone.

How to automate accounts payable in Epicor

Setting up automation takes four steps, and once it is connected every new invoice follows the same path without manual entry.

1. Connect Epicor Kinetic

Import your vendor list and chart of accounts from a one-time Epicor export. The integration reads your supplier list and general ledger accounts, so the coding it applies matches the chart of accounts already in your company. You do this once, and it works whether you run Kinetic in the cloud or on-premises.

2. Capture the invoice

Forward invoices to a dedicated email address or upload them directly. AI reads each document and extracts the header fields and line items, turning a PDF into a structured invoice record you can check before anything reaches Epicor. See how our invoice data capture and OCR handles different supplier formats without templates.

3. Route for approval

Routing rules decide who signs off, by amount threshold, plant, department, supplier, or GL account. A small office bill might need one approver while a large equipment invoice needs the plant manager and the controller. You build and change these rules yourself, with no ECM workflow to maintain, and reminders plus escalation keep nothing stuck. Read more about building this layer in our guide to invoice approval software.

4. Move the approved invoice into your ERP

When an invoice clears every required approval, it moves into Epicor Kinetic through our REST API or a coded import file, as an AP invoice with the supplier, amount, and account coding intact. Finance then pays from a clean, approved queue using Epicor checks, ACH, or Epicor Payment Exchange, instead of working through a pile of unverified documents.

Does Epicor have AP automation built in?

Partly. Epicor Kinetic automates the ledger work of accounts payable through its Financial Management module: it stores suppliers, records AP invoices, schedules payments, and runs check and ACH batches through Epicor Payment Exchange. It does not include OCR capture or flexible multi-level approvals in the core ERP. For those, Epicor offers a separate product, Epicor ECM (formerly DocStar), which adds capture and document workflow as its own license and project. So the honest answer is that Epicor gives you a strong ledger and either an add-on or a third-party layer gives you the automation most teams mean when they say AP automation. If you also run other systems, compare the NetSuite AP automation, Business Central AP automation, and Acumatica AP automation setups.

What to look for in Epicor AP automation software

The Epicor add-on market includes Epicor ECM and several third-party tools. Compare on the things that actually shorten the cycle and protect your cash, not on long feature lists.

A genuine Epicor Kinetic sync

Look for a connection that reads suppliers and your general ledger accounts and writes approved invoices back as AP invoices, not a CSV export you import by hand. See every connection on our integrations page.

Capture that handles your real invoices

Automation only helps if the extracted data is right across all your suppliers, not just clean PO invoices. Strong line-item extraction on non-PO and odd-format bills is exactly the part Epicor leaves to manual AP invoice entry, so it is where a dedicated tool earns its place.

Approval rules finance can own

You want configurable, multi-level approval chains that match how your plants and departments delegate authority, with reminders and escalation, and you want to change them yourself instead of opening an ECM workflow ticket for every tweak.

Duplicate and fraud protection

Paying the same bill twice is one of the most common and expensive AP errors. Good software flags a repeated invoice number or a mismatch against the purchase order before the invoice posts. Read our guide to 3 way matching in accounts payable for how that check works.

Epicor ECM (DocStar) vs a focused AP layer

Epicor ECM is a capable enterprise content management platform, and if you need company-wide document management across HR, contracts, and quality records, it can make sense. For accounts payable alone, though, it is often more platform and project than a finance team wants to roll out just to stop keying invoices. AutoPayables covers the AP use case specifically: capture, approval routing, duplicate checks, and a clean sync into Epicor. You can have it running this week, and if you later adopt ECM for broader document management, AP stays handled either way.

Does it replace Epicor AP?

No. AutoPayables works alongside Epicor Kinetic, not instead of it. Epicor stays your system of record, your ledger, and your payment engine. AutoPayables makes the front end faster: it captures the invoices you would otherwise key in, pulls bills from your inbox, gives finance approval rules they can change in minutes, and feeds Epicor clean, approved, correctly coded AP invoices. Teams that already invested in Epicor keep that investment and simply stop losing time on manual entry and approval chasing. For the broader picture, see our overview of accounts payable software and our guide to the best AP automation software.

How AutoPayables fits your Epicor workflow

The goal is to make the front end of accounts payable fast and controlled so Epicor Kinetic always holds clean, approved, correctly coded AP invoices. Capture feeds approval, approval feeds payment, and duplicate checks protect all of it. Read more about the broader invoice approval process and our invoice processing software, or compare the Acumatica AP automation setup if you are weighing another mid-market ERP, or the Oracle AP automation and SAP AP automation setups if you are moving upmarket. When you are ready, our pricing starts free.

Getting started

Start at the top of this page. Upload one real supplier invoice and watch the AI extract it. Then build a simple approval rule and route it to a colleague. Most teams have a working Epicor AP automation running the same afternoon, and the free plan lets you prove it out before connecting it to your Epicor Kinetic company.

Is AutoPayables a native Epicor integration?

Straight answer, because vendors are usually vague about this: AutoPayables is not a native Epicor module and does not install inside Epicor. Our native two-way syncs today are QuickBooks Online, Xero, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct. For Epicor you move approved, fully coded AP invoices across in one of two ways. Our REST API, included on the Scale plan, lets your team or your Epicor partner pull approved invoices and post them into Epicor Kinetic on your schedule. Or you export approved invoices as a coded file and import them into the AP module, which most teams run once or twice a day. The capture, coding, duplicate checking, and approval routing all happen in AutoPayables; only the finished, approved record crosses over. If an embedded Epicor module is a hard requirement for you, say so early and compare vendors on that basis.