A 100-Day AP Transformation Plan for a Newly Acquired Company

1. Assess the current state: map process, data, volume, controls, and pain. 2. Define the target: align to the portfolio AP standard. 3. Clean the data: prepare the vendor master and coding for cutover. 4. Configure the process: intake, coding, approval matrix, integration. 5. Roll out: go live with the standardized workflow. 6. Train the team: build coding, routing, and exception skills. 7. Establish metrics: set the measures that prove it is working.

The first roughly 30 days are for understanding, not changing. The team maps how AP runs in the acquired company today: how invoices arrive, how they are coded and approved, who the approvers are, what the volume is, what controls exist, and where the pain concentrates. This is also when the data is examined, the vendor master, the chart of accounts, and open items, since data quality shapes everything that follows.

Assessment matters because acquired companies often have their own ad hoc processes and uneven controls. Understanding the starting point, rather than assuming it, is what lets the standardization phase target the real gaps. Rushing past assessment leads to a configuration that does not fit the company's actual situation.

The next roughly 30 days turn understanding into design. The team configures the target process against the portfolio standard: standardized intake, coding standards mapped to the company's ERP, a current and correct approval matrix, segregation of duties, and the ERP integration. Data cleanup happens here too, so the cutover starts on a clean vendor master and chart of accounts.

This phase is where the acquired company's AP is aligned to how the portfolio runs AP, while respecting its own ERP as the system of record. The output is a configured, validated workflow ready to go live, not yet in production but built and tested against the company's real structure.

The final roughly 40 days are for go-live and stabilization. The standardized workflow goes into production, the team is trained on coding, routing, communication, and exception handling, and the early period is supported closely so issues are caught and resolved. This is also when the metrics that show the transformation is working are established and watched.

Stabilization matters as much as go-live. A transformation is not done when the system turns on; it is done when the team is processing confidently, the exceptions are under control, and the metrics confirm the new process is performing. The longer final phase reflects that establishing a steady state takes more time than flipping the switch.

Stampli supports a phased transformation because it integrates with the acquired company's ERP and keeps it as the system of record, which lets the standardization phase configure a consistent AP workflow without disrupting the underlying ledger. The ERP-integrated design aims to keep the integration manageable within a 100-day window.

During rollout, Stampli's invoice-as-workspace, AI coding and matching with human review, approval routing, and vendor portal give the acquired team one environment to learn, which supports training and a faster path to confident processing. Validation against ERP rules helps surface data issues during configuration rather than after go-live.

Because Stampli enforces segregation of duties by design and captures every action in an immutable audit trail, the transformation also raises control consistency as it lands, which is often a primary goal after an acquisition. The phased approach, assess, standardize, stabilize, maps to how Stampli is implemented against a company's real structure.