For finance teams running Dynamics 365, the ERP handles the accounting. But what happens between invoice receipt and posting is often a different story. Shared inboxes, manual reformatting, and batch uploads fill the space between AP and the ledger, and that space tends to grow as invoice volume and entity count increase. This post looks at how America’s Auto Auction closed that gap across 50+ locations and 32,000 monthly invoices, and what their experience reveals about the difference between connecting to an ERP and actually being native to it.
The Gap Between Dynamics 365 and AP Operations
Microsoft Dynamics 365 can handle complex multi-entity accounting, dimensional reporting, and global operations. But the ERP is only as effective as the processes feeding data into it. For high-volume finance teams processing tens of thousands of invoices per month, the gap between AP and the ERP is almost always filled with manual work: pulling invoices from shared inboxes, reformatting data in Excel, and batch-uploading it into the system.
That is not integration. That is data entry with extra steps.
America’s Auto Auction (AAA) is the country’s largest independent auto auction network, operating more than 50 locations with over 12,000 active vendors. Their AP team handles roughly 32,000 invoices every month. Before they connected AP directly to Dynamics 365, every invoice passed through a manual extraction and import workflow that had nothing to do with what the ERP was built to do.
“Our old system was not connected to our ERP (Microsoft Dynamics 365) at all. Every day we spent hours extracting data, downloading it, and importing it just to get invoices posted. That manual work was the biggest pain point for us.”
The True Cost of Manual ERP Data Handling
When AP teams describe their ERP workflow, the same pattern comes up repeatedly:
- Invoices land in a shared email inbox, sometimes multiple invoices in a single PDF
- Someone on the AP team extracts them manually and reformats the data
- The reformatted data is uploaded into the ERP
- Reconciliation starts because something did not map correctly
At AAA’s scale, this cycle was running thousands of times per day. Every hand-off introduced risk: miskeyed GL codes, duplicated vendor entries, invoices sitting in someone’s inbox for weeks. And the AP manager had no centralized way to see where things stood.
“Before Stampli, I really did not have visibility. Invoices were coming into shared email inboxes, sometimes multiple invoices in one PDF. We had to extract everything, download it, import it into our ERP, and hope nothing was missed.”
To understand the status of approvals, Adriane had to pull data from each location individually, download it into Excel, and manually build pivot tables just to get a basic picture of what was happening across the organization.
When your ERP is being fed through manual uploads, the data inside it is always lagging behind reality. That means month-end close is slower, audit prep takes longer, and finance leadership is making decisions based on numbers that are already out of date.
Native AP Capabilities in Dynamics 365
Dynamics 365 includes AP features, but it does not offer a standalone AP automation solution. The native AP capabilities can handle low complexity invoice processing, but they do not include:
- Intelligent data capture from email inboxes
- AI-powered GL coding that learns from historical patterns
- Configurable multi-step approval routing that adapts across entities and departments
- Automatic duplicate detection at scale
- Centralized visibility across locations in real time
For a team like AAA’s, processing 32,000 invoices per month across 50+ locations with 12,000+ vendors, the native D365 AP tools are not enough. The volume and complexity require a purpose-built AP automation layer that works with Dynamics 365 rather than being confined to what is available inside it. Your ERP is the single source of truth. What you need is a platform that extends it without requiring rework or duplicate master data.
Native AP add-ons live inside the D365 interface and follow its UI and update cycles, but they tend to be limited in data capture, matching, and workflow flexibility. External solutions like Stampli integrate bi-directionally with D365 as independent platforms, offering deeper automation while keeping the ERP untouched as the system of record.
What ERP-Native Integration Means in Practice
The term “ERP integration” gets used loosely in AP automation. Some vendors mean a one-way data export. Others mean a CSV import that runs on a schedule. These approaches can work at low volume, but they fall apart at scale because they still require a translation layer between the AP tool and the ERP.
Stampli takes a different approach. Rather than trying to be its own database or forcing you to rebuild your chart of accounts in a separate system, Stampli is ERP-native by design. It mirrors your existing ERP structure from day one through deep, field-level synchronization, including:
- Chart of accounts and GL codes
- Entities, subsidiaries, and dimensional structure
- Vendor master data
- Approval hierarchies and routing rules
This sync is bi-directional and real-time. That means your ERP remains the single source of truth, and Stampli acts as a seamless extension of it. You never have to reconcile two different databases, and when your ERP evolves, Stampli evolves with it automatically.
This architecture also enables pre-validation. Before an invoice is ever posted to Dynamics 365, Stampli checks it against your ERP’s rules to ensure there are no errors. Missing fields, inactive GL codes, duplicate invoice numbers: these are caught and resolved before they touch the ledger. When you finally export, the data lands cleanly with zero rework.
For AAA, this distinction was the deciding factor. Their requirement was direct connectivity with Dynamics 365, not a workaround or a batch sync.
“Stampli was the only platform we found that could directly connect with our ERP, and that alone saved us at least 10 hours a week.”
Processing Monthly 32,000 Invoices with Stampli AI
At AAA’s volume, the practical difference between a CSV bridge and an ERP-native platform shows up in every part of the daily workflow.
Invoices arrive pre-coded against live ERP data. Stampli AI learns AAA’s coding patterns across their 12,000+ vendor relationships. It is embedded AI, trained on billions of real-world transactions across $150 billion in annual spend, that proactively does the work: extracting data, predicting GL coding, and flagging errors before they reach the ERP. For recurring invoices that are always tied to the same company or GL code, the coding is set upfront. Invoices arrive in the queue already coded, and AP specialists can process one in under a minute.
Small efficiencies compound at scale. With 12,000+ vendors, having Stampli AI select the correct vendor name, invoice date, and description on each invoice removes repetitive clicks that add up across thousands of daily transactions. As Adriane noted, “You might think one click does not matter, but when you are doing that a thousand times a day, it does.”
Real-time visibility replaces spreadsheet guesswork. Instead of pulling data from each location and building pivot tables in Excel, the AP manager can now see invoice status, ownership, aging, and team productivity from a single screen. That shift from lagging, manually assembled reports to live operational data changed how AAA manages AP day to day.
Scaling Through Acquisitions Without Adding Headcount
The real test of any ERP integration is not how it handles current volume. It is what happens when volume doubles.
AAA has been acquiring new auction locations steadily, and each acquisition brings new vendors, new invoice patterns, and new AP complexity. Under the old manual process, every new location would have required more AP staff to handle the increased data extraction and import workload. With Stampli’s ERP-native integration, each new location’s data flows into the existing Dynamics 365 structure without reconfiguring the AP process. Because Stampli mirrors the ERP’s structure automatically, new entities, vendors, and dimensional data sync as soon as they exist in D365. The volume grew, but the team did not.
AAA manages more than 50 auctions, and each one has different needs. Transporters, utilities, keys, and glass all require different handling. Stampli accommodates that complexity with:
- Customizable fields that can be added or removed per workflow
- Flexible approval routing that adapts to each location’s requirements
- The ability to add new process steps, like backdating month-end invoices with a single click
“We grew fast, and honestly, I felt like I was drowning before we got Stampli. In the last two years we have taken on more auctions without having to increase our headcount. My only regret is that we did not do it sooner.”
Impact of Clean ERP Data Across Finance
When AP data reaches Dynamics 365 accurately and on time, the benefits extend well beyond the AP department.
Faster month-end close. Before the integration, month-end was heavily manual at AAA. Invoices sat in emails, and the team had to calculate expenses just to understand what should hit the close. Now invoices are already in the system, sorted and ready to process instead of waiting to be counted. Because transactions are coded correctly at the source and pre-validated against ERP rules, there is less reclassification and fewer accrual surprises at close.
Audit-ready accuracy by default. When auditors request invoices, AAA can select and download them immediately. Treasury uses Stampli to research bank payments and verify whether invoices are attached, which cut significant back-and-forth time. Every action, user, and timestamp is documented in a complete, immutable audit trail that is ready for inspection at any time.
Self-service reporting for controllers. Because the data in Dynamics 365 is clean and current, AAA’s controllers can pull their own reports without relying on the AP team or going through training.
“Our Controllers can run reports without training, which never happened in our old system. Everyone from AP to treasury to auditors can easily get what they need. That gives leadership confidence that the data is right and accessible, without slowing us down.”
Applying This to Your Dynamics 365 Environment
AAA’s challenges are not unique. Every high-volume finance team running Dynamics 365 faces some version of the same problem: manual data handling between AP and the ERP that gets worse as volume grows. The invoices might number 5,000 instead of 32,000. The vendors might number 2,000 instead of 12,000. But the pattern is the same.
AAA did not fix their AP problem by hiring faster or building a better spreadsheet. They fixed it by removing the gap between AP and Dynamics 365 entirely. Stampli acts as an ERP-native extension that keeps Dynamics 365 as the single source of truth while automating everything between invoice receipt and posting. When those two systems share the same GL structure, the same vendor master, and the same validation rules, the manual work does not get optimized. It gets eliminated. And when that happens, the ERP does what it was designed to do: serve as a reliable, real-time source of financial truth.
America’s Auto Auction: At a Glance
| Detail | Value |
| Company | America’s Auto Auction |
| Industry | Automotive / Wholesale Auto Auctions |
| Scale | 50+ auction locations nationwide |
| Monthly Invoice Volume | ~32,000 |
| Active Vendors | 12,000+ |
| ERP | Microsoft Dynamics 365 |
| AP Automation | Stampli |
| Key Result | 10+ hours/week saved by eliminating manual ERP data handling |
| Headcount Impact | Scaled through multiple acquisitions without adding AP staff |
