A one-stop shop for all your AR needs—what could possibly go wrong?
Plenty, as it turns out. AP portals were supposed to make invoicing and collections easier by centralizing payments, status updates, dispute resolutions, and the like. That was the theory, at least. In practice, they’ve become one of the biggest bottlenecks in the payment process.
Customers hate using them. Interfaces are clunky and not intuitive to navigate, and it’s all too easy to misplace login info. AR teams don’t fare much better—they need to maneuver around all kinds of different portals, manually entering in data and chasing down payments.
It’s time to move past portal purgatory. With the help of AI agents, you can eliminate these headaches while simultaneously improving cash flow and your team's time.
Why teams struggle with AP portals
1. They weren’t built with customers in mind
How did AP portals end up so clunky, confusing, and generally miserable to use? Because they weren’t built for customers; they were built for systems. Their reason for existence is to standardize payment collection, not to make life easier for the people using them.
For many businesses—especially SMBs—portals aren’t worth the hassle. So they avoid them altogether. That’s when things start to unravel: invoices go missing, payment links expire, and AR teams are forced to play detective.
2. Manual processes slow everything down
It’s not like AR teams are kicking their feet up while customers suffer. Sure, AP portals were meant to cut down on manual work on the back end, but they often do just the opposite. Since customers have to enter details manually, when something goes wrong (as it always does eventually), AR teams are forced to pick up the pieces.
When payments do go through, reconciliation is rarely seamless. Most portals don’t match invoices to payments automatically, meaning finance staff have to sift through remittance details by hand to do so. That means more time spent tracking down missing payments, resolving discrepancies, and handling frustrated customers who thought their invoice was already taken care of.
3. Lack of integrations creates extra work
Clunky UX and manual busywork are a pain, but many finance pros would tell you that a lack of system integrations is the real killer. Most portals don’t sync seamlessly with their accounting software, ERPs, or CRMs, leaving finance teams on both sides stuck dealing with maddening workarounds.
Here’s how it typically plays out: a collector submits payment through the portal, but because it doesn’t push real-time updates to your ERP, that payment sits in limbo until someone manually logs it. This creates more room for errors, delays reconciliation, and cash flow blind spots.
4. Poor communication channels lead to delays
If AP portals were supposed to improve communication, they have a long way to go. Rather than simply firing off a quick question to get a basic issue resolved, like a missing discount or uncredited payment, collectors need to jump through a series of hoops: searching for contact info, drafting emails, or calling support, all while their invoice sits unpaid. Some don’t even bother (can you blame them?), and let the issue sit until they have time to deal with it.
Even when customers do reach out, the back-and-forth can drag on for days. Disputes get buried in email threads, status updates get lost in the portal, and AR teams end up chasing payments that were technically made—just never recorded.
The situation is bleak. Fortunately, AI agents promise a better way forward for everybody.
How AI-powered solutions help AR teams manage and optimize portals
For too long, AR teams have long been stuck with two bad options: spend hours manually managing portals or cross their fingers and hope their automations don’t break. With AI agents, you get the best of both worlds—a better experience for employees .
AI agents manage AP portals for you
How would you like to never have to log into another AP portal again? AI agents can make this a reality—they handle logins for you, along with other busywork like entering invoice details. Plus, you can be sure that invoices are typo-free and submitted on time.
AI eliminates brittle RPA workflows
RPA bots have been a boon for efficiency, but they’re far from perfect. Nearly half of them fail in practice. Their biggest problem is brittleness—the second a portal makes a minor cosmetic change, like shifting a field or tweaking the UI, the whole automation can break, forcing a human to step in to keep the process moving. AI agents are far more robust because they can adapt to these kinds of changes on the fly. They don’t follow a predefined script—instead, they can recognize when something changes and figure out what they need to do to accomplish their goal.
AI flags issues in real time
Few things in AR are worse than finding out about a payment issue weeks after it’s happened. By that point, you have at least two issues: collectors are frustrated, and cash flow has likely taken a hit.
AI prevents this from happening by immediately flagging issues as they happen. Failed payment submission? Your AR team gets a heads-up right away. New customer dispute? An AI agent routes it to the relevant contact before it sends your process off the rails. Instead of being in ever-present firefighting mode, AR teams can stay on top of problems as they occur and keep payments moving.
AI adapts to any portal—whether it supports APIs or not
No two portals look the exact same, which is partially why technologies like RPA struggle to work in these kinds of environments. Some portals have APIs, some don’t. Some update frequently, others rarely change.
AI agents don’t care. If an API is available, the agent connects to it, pushing and pulling data automatically. If it’s a UI-based portal, agents learn the interface and navigate it like a human—without breaking every time a field moves. No more custom scripts. No more reconfiguring bots every time a customer updates their system.
AI personalizes payment workflows
Simply put, generic payment reminders don’t work. Long-time customers find them impersonal, while habitual late-payers tune them out entirely. But historically, AR teams haven’t had the bandwidth to tailor their outreach to every individual customer.
Doing so is now possible with the help of AI agents. AI customizes outreach based on behavior—a customer with a solid payment history gets a friendly nudge, not an escalation. A repeat offender gets proactive outreach before their payment window closes. AI even tailors follow-ups based on past interactions, helping to prevent unnecessary disputes and making collections smoother without adding extra work.
AI gives teams control over how payments are processed
Not every collector wants to log into a portal just to pay an invoice. With AI, they don’t have to. AI determines the best way to process payments, whether through the portal or a more direct route like a pay link or one-click ACH transfer. This removes the barriers that slow down payments and lets customers pay the way that works best for them.
Stop fighting with outdated portals
Relieve your team of the hassle of dealing with AP portals once and for all. Stuut’s AI Portal Agent can handle all your portal-related needs—handling submissions, tracking payment statuses, and ensuring you never miss a critical update.
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