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Vic.ai: the future of accounting

Alexander Hagerup

Alexander Hagerup

Co-founder & CEO

We do a lot more than just process invoices. We help finance teams understand patterns, find irregularities, and discover opportunities faster.

December 16, 2022

5 min read

Vic.ai: the future of accounting

The world is changing rapidly, and technology is a major player in this change. We have seen a lot of technological advancements in the last two decades, but artificial intelligence (AI) is the biggest technological leap forward since the modern computer. This has opened up many new possibilities in all fields, including accounting, so this is where we entered the scene to shake things up.  

Vic.ai is pioneering the use of autonomy and intelligence to digitally transform accounting and finance processes to improve productivity, decision-making, and ROI. We are the first pure AI accounting solution that lets you get back to working on tasks that have a real impact on your company. We are Vic.ai.

Who is Vic.ai?

Here at Vic.ai, we help accounting teams automate tedious AP data entry through artificial intelligence (AI) & machine learning (ML). We are the world's first pure AI accounting technology that works alongside teams in the accounting process to aid in invoice processing and other accounting-related tasks. 

How do we do it? 

Vic.ai adds a sophisticated artificial intelligence engine and autonomous approval flow to layer across your financial account payables operations. We've specialized in processing and understanding invoices and extracting real-time insights for better and faster financial decision-making using our world-leading AI solution and modern User Interface (UI). In short, we expedite internal processes and cut unnecessary costs —without cutting corners.

Our solution consists of two pillars: Autonomy and Intelligence

autonomy and intelligence

The new autonomy features will be additions to award-winning features like:  

  • Autopilot: intelligently selects invoices and expenses that meet a certain confidence level and automates them so that they are immediately sent to the approvers without requiring any data entry or classification review by a human. This includes everything from vendor identification to cost and dimensional classifications on a line item level.
  • Autonomous Approval Flows: determines the correct number of steps in the invoice approval process and who needs to review each step automatically.

Then when it comes to intelligence, we’re known for:

  • Vic.ai Analytics: provides clients with customizable processing insight dashboards and includes performance data based on user, region, AI accuracy, processing time, and more. With Vic.ai Analytics, finance teams get crucial data to pinpoint issues in real-time. Measuring key metrics enables optimizing a once complex and manual operation while enabling sustainable change management and creating competitive advantage with data insights.

The problem we’re solving

No matter the industry, every company needs accounting, which is inheritably tedious and time-consuming. Accounting tasks have always been managed by using legacy systems that are based on various predefined rules and templates. We throw the need for rules and templates out the window. Because let’s be honest, that’s not scalable. 

With the Vic.ai platform, the whole process can work autonomously, not requiring any human intervention. This approach shouldn’t be confused with automation, which is rule/template-based, pre-programmed, and not adaptable to changes in the environment.

In contrast, Vic.ai’s  AI algorithm performs reasoning intelligently and adapts to new requirements, making the accounting process autonomous. Customers see up to 80% process improvements by having our AI algorithms perform the work previously handled via templates and human revision.

Where we got our roots

Founded in 2017, Norwegian entrepreneurs Alexander Hagerup and Kristoffer Roil embarked on a mission to help accounting teams across the globe work better. They both got their fire for accounting at a young age. Alexander “grew up” in his mom’s accounting practice, and Kris has turned around financially troubled companies throughout his career.

 

One pattern they recognized early on was the fact that companies would undoubtedly face unforeseen accounting obstacles as they began to scale. This is where they decided to set out to create an accounting system that could scale when businesses did. It may have seemed like a lofty goal, but the two of them wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

“We saw a need in accounting, and we filled the gaps”

Every company on the planet needs accounting, which is inheritably boring. It’s tedious and time-consuming. It’s always been handled by humans and somewhat automated via templates and RPA. Kris & Alex wanted to create something smarter. An AI that can reason like a human being. They didn’t want to replace humans – they wanted them to do more elevated work. 

Today, Vic.ai delivers fully autonomous AI systems that make finance and accounting teams more efficient, accurate, and intelligent. The company’s AI platform has now processed more than half a billion invoices with 97-99% accuracy rating, helping 10,000+ customers achieve nearly $200 million in cost savings and 6 million hours in time savings. Enterprise customers include HSB Real Estate (one of Scandinavia's largest CRE companies), Higher Ground, Nordic Choice Hotel, Intercom Inc. and HireQuest, as well as top accounting firms, including PwC, BDO (Norway and US), RSM (US and Europe) and Armanino LLP redirect resources toward higher-value functions like spend intelligence, benchmarking and cost optimization.

As of September 1, 2021,  we raised our Series B funding. The Series B funding was led by ICONIQ Growth with participation from existing investors GGV Capital, Cowboy Ventures, and Costanoa Ventures. The infusion of $50M in Series B funding will bring the total capital raised to $63M. One December 13th, we raised our series C funding, which was led by the same investors, bringing total capital raised to $115 million

Our Values

Here at Vic.ai, we believe that innovation is at the core of tomorrow

But we also understand that without our diverse, global team, we wouldn’t be the company we are today. By nurturing a culture of humility, authenticity, and growth, we’ve been able to rally the help of talented people from around the world to get us where we are today. As an equal opportunity employer, we represent different nationalities, races, genders, ages, sexual orientations, and backgrounds to give us a diverse team with differing perspectives!

Vic.ai values

So, what else do we value (besides our awesome team)? Our other core values include:

  • Putting people first
  • Making integrity a fundamental
  • Believing in the magic of honesty 
  • Valuing action over motion
  • And, enjoying the journey

We live out these values, as a company, every day. Without them, we wouldn’t be Vic!

Quick Q&A

Q. Give us some background. Where is Vic.ai?

  1. Vic was founded in 2017 in Norway. The company still has team members in Norway, but now also in the rest of Europe (France, Portugal, Austria, and more). Today, the HQ is in New York, but we have remote employees all across the globe!

Q. Why should we consider Vic.ai?

  1. Vic.ai is pioneering the use of autonomy and intelligence to digitally transform accounting and finance processes to improve productivity, decision-making, and ROI. Our global customers include accounting firms, enterprise, and mid-market finance teams seeking to embrace automation and AI to improve financial performance.

Q. Will features like “Auto-Pilot” replace humans? 

  1. Not at all. Accountants still play a critical role, but instead of focusing much of their time and energy on mundane, repetitive tasks, their day-to-day work can shift to higher-level, more valuable jobs and opportunities.

Q. Which industries especially benefit from automated accounting? 

  1. Vic.ai is industry-agnostic, but any company that processes more than 100,000+ invoices per year is a great fit! We are continuously developing our offering, and it’s not industry-specific and could work for any type of enterprise. 

Q. How reliable is your AI-based decision-making?

  1. Our AI system has a 97-99% accuracy rate. At the end of the day, template-based or other legacy alternatives that require manual inputs achieve significantly less. In fact, according to numerous studies, human error mixed with technology is a leading cause of accounting mistakes.

The future of accounting is Vic.ai

We believe in giving finance professionals the tools they need to make everyday operations simpler and more intelligent. From processing invoices to data predictions, our system is here to give you the bandwidth you need to complete those more meaningful tasks in your day-to-day. 

If you haven’t figured it out by now, we are disrupting the world of accounting by challenging the status quo. We may just be the group of game-changers and innovators that you didn’t know you’d be so happy to meet.

Are you ready to eliminate mundane tasks and expedite your invoice processing times with AI? Book a demo to see Vic.ai in action and how our AI-based invoice processing system can help your business thrive!

Enter the new era of intelligent accounting. Access our latest e-book to discover 7 ways to unlock faster and more accurate accounting.

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