Organizations of all sizes rely on intake processes to initiate essential business activities, from creating general ledger accounts to managing employee offboarding. However, despite being foundational to operations, many of these intake tasks remain inefficient, inconsistent, and largely manual.
Traditional intake processes are often plagued by a patchwork of spreadsheets, email threads, paper forms, and disconnected systems. Requests can be lost, delayed, or processed with incomplete information. There is little visibility into status, accountability, and even less auditability. As a result, the intake process often becomes a bottleneck, costing time, increasing compliance risks, and frustrating stakeholders.
Smart intake management provides a much needed alternative. By combining intelligent automation with guided workflows, structured data capture, and integration into core systems like SAP and DocuSign, smart intake ensures that requests are submitted correctly, routed efficiently, and tracked from initiation to completion. This blog explores five of the most impactful use cases for AI-powered intake management, where the technology addresses critical operational pain points and delivers measurable business benefits.
Here are 10 unexpected wins that organizations are realizing with AP automation advantages, going far beyond just cost savings.
Many existing intake processes were developed years ago and have not evolved in line with the growing complexity of business operations. The issues that once seemed tolerable, manual handling, inconsistent routing, and a lack of traceability, have become serious liabilities.
This is perhaps the most common problem. Employees often submit requests by email or static forms without confirmation, tracking, or visibility. Approvals may be managed through separate systems, and follow-ups rely on individual effort rather than automated prompts.
High cycle times and compliance risks follow naturally. Critical tasks can fall through the cracks without standardized workflows or built-in checks or be delayed indefinitely. In areas such as finance and procurement, these delays can lead to compliance issues or audit findings.
This is another primary concern. Without a central platform capturing all intake activity, it’s difficult for leadership or compliance teams to understand how decisions were made, where delays occurred, or whether required controls were followed.
Automated intake solutions, as offered by platforms like Cherrywork, solve these problems by reimagining intake as a structured, intelligent process:
Learn more about how the Cherrywork Intake Management software can resolve traditional intake challenges.
Examine how this transformation plays out across five high-impact use cases.
The problem
Creating a new GL account often requires inputs and approvals from multiple teams, including Finance, IT, and Compliance. In many organizations, this process is managed via email or spreadsheets, making it easy for requests to be misdirected or lost. Data inconsistencies due to manual entry also lead to rework or delays updating ERP systems.
The smart intake solution
AI-powered intake management streamlines the process through structured forms with field-level validations. Platforms like Cherrywork Intake Management enable rules-based routing of requests to the correct stakeholders for approval. Once cleared, the request is directly pushed into the SAP system, ensuring consistency and eliminating duplication.
The impact
Organizations benefit from reduced processing time, higher data accuracy, and improved audit readiness. Approvers operate within a transparent framework, and requesters can track progress without relying on manual follow-ups.
The problem
Vendor onboarding is frequently slow and disjointed. Traditional processes rely on disconnected tools like emails, spreadsheets, and standalone portals, which result in repetitive communication, inconsistent data collection, and manual validations. These inefficiencies cause significant delays in onboarding new suppliers, compliance risks, and offer little visibility into onboarding progress or bottlenecks.
The smart intake solution
Cherrywork Smart Intake Management brings structure and automation to vendor onboarding. The process begins with vendors receiving a guided onboarding link powered by AI-driven intake workflows. Vendors can submit required documents like NDAs and business credentials through secure, integrated forms, with e-signature support via DocuSign. The intake process automation then automatically validates supplier data and performs duplicate checks to ensure consistency and compliance.
Where Cherrywork Intake Management truly stands out is its seamless integration with SAP Ariba. Once all internal approvals are secured across risk, finance, legal, and procurement functions, the approved supplier is created automatically in SAP Ariba via an API call. This removes the need for manual data entry, ensures alignment between intake and procurement systems, and accelerates readiness for transactional activities such as PO issuance or contract initiation.
The impact
The integration with SAP Ariba ensures that once a vendor clears all internal checks across risk, compliance, legal, and procurement, their information is automatically created in Ariba via an API call, eliminating manual re-entry and reducing errors. Procurement and compliance teams benefit from significantly shorter cycle times, real-time visibility into onboarding progress, and automated approval flows tailored to organizational risk protocols. The entire process is fully traceable, ensuring audit readiness and improved governance.
Click here to automate vendor onboarding with Cherrywork!
The problem
Offboarding a departing employee involves multiple departments: HR, IT, Security, and Facilities. Critical steps like deactivating system access or collecting company assets can be missed without proper coordination, creating data security risks and compliance concerns.
The smart intake solution
Smart intake introduces centralized offboarding workflows triggered by a single event, such as a resignation notice. Cherrywork enables automatic task assignment, notifications to stakeholders, and progress tracking. Each department is accountable for its tasks, with built-in reminders and escalations.
The impact
Organizations can ensure secure and compliant exits with reduced manual coordination and minimal risk of lapses. Every step is logged, providing clear visibility into completion status and timing.
The problem
Incomplete information, vague ownership, and unclear approval paths often delay cost center creation requests. Repeated back-and-forth communication between departments prolongs the process and introduces the potential for errors.
The smart intake solution
Cherrywork’s intake engine guides users through submitting all required data upfront. Business rules ensure routing to the appropriate approvers, and ERP integration automates cost center creation once approved.
The impact
With smart intake, data is accurate and complete, cycle times are shorter, and the entire approval chain is visible and auditable. Finance teams can create and manage cost centers more efficiently, supporting better budget control.
The problem
Whether related to travel, expenses, or procurement, policy exception requests are frequently unclear. Employees are unsure how to initiate them, who approves them, or what the criteria are. The lack of a formal process leads to inconsistent decisions and compliance gaps.
The smart intake solution
A smart intake solution provides dynamic forms that adjust based on the exception type and user role. Once submitted, the request is routed to designated approvers, with decision points and supporting documents recorded centrally.
The impact
This ensures a fair, structured approach to exception handling with full traceability. Governance teams can monitor trends, ensure policy adherence, and refine policies based on data insights.
Want a demo before moving to Cherrywork Intake Management? Click here!
Smart intake management is no longer a nice-to-have. It is quickly becoming essential for any organization aiming to reduce risk, improve efficiency, and maintain compliance across critical business functions. With Cherrywork, enterprises gain a solution as a strategic foundation for better decision-making and operational clarity.
The five use cases described above highlight the versatility and power of intake management across departments. Each scenario benefits from increased speed, accuracy, and oversight, but the true value lies in bringing structure and consistency to what was once fragmented, manual operations. Cherrywork enables this shift through a robust set of capabilities and SAP intake workflow automation, which include:
Consider Cherrywork Intake Management to move from reactive issue management to proactive operational control.
Accelerate request-to-fulfilment with intelligent intake management that drives speed, compliance, and strategic alignment. Understand the why behind every request and act faster with confidence.
Would you like to do the same for your organization? If yes, then reach out to us at talk2us@cherrywork.com
