How Forenom saved 1,000+ hours a month with AI and rule-based automation

Forenom is a fast-growing provider of serviced apartments, with over 8,000 units in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Germany. That scale comes with a big admin load — particularly in finance.

With 100,000 invoices to process each year, Forenom needed serious automation to avoid drowning in manual work.

“Only in Finland, we get about 6,000 invoices a month,” Timo Aula, Manager of Order to Cash and Purchase to Pay, explains. "Handling those manually would eat up a lot of time for our business units.” 

The challenge: High volume, low efficiency

As Forenom expanded across the Nordics and into Germany, their invoice handling became increasingly complex.

Existing solutions no longer scaled efficiently across countries, and manual steps in coding and approvals limited speed and accuracy. Onboarding a new country also required significant process setup.

“If we had to check and approve each invoice manually, it would take 10 to 15 minutes per invoice. Multiply that by 6,000… that’s 1,000+ hours per month,” says Timo. 

The goal: Automate what matters

Timo and his team needed a smarter way to manage accounts payable across multiple countries, local regulations, and ERPs.

They wanted a solution that could:

• Automate recurring invoices with high accuracy
• Scale quickly across new countries
• Predict approval flows with confidence 
• Help close the books faster 
• Reduce risk and improve control 

The solution: Why Forenom chose Rillion

After outgrowing previous tools, Forenom turned to Rillion — a cloud-based AP automation platform with built-in AI and seamless ERP integration.

What stood out:

• AI-powered flow prediction with visual confidence indicators
• Cross-border compliance (e.g. support for local reference numbers)
• Fast, low-effort onboarding for new entities like Germany
• Deep integration with their existing ERPs

“Adding a new country was surprisingly smooth. It wasn’t a huge, expensive software project, just plug and play,” says Timo. 

The breakthrough: 100% invoice automation in Finland

Forenom rolled out automation in two stages:

• 70% of invoices are now automatically matched to contracts
• The remaining 30% are auto-coded using Rillion’s AI

“In Finland, our largest market, every invoice is now either contract-matched or AI-coded. Nothing is fully manual anymore,” says Timo.

For recurring invoices, like electricity bills, Forenom set up rules in Rillion’s contract module to automate approvals based on invoice thresholds.

If an electricity bill matched the expected amount and apartment, it was approved automatically — no human involved.

They also embraced bulk actions to process large volumes with a single click.

“My team loves the fact that they can process thousands of invoices in seconds. Bulk matching is one of their favorite features,” says Timo. 

The results: Time saved, accuracy gained

It didn’t take long for Forenom to see positive results with Rillion:

• Time savings: 1,000+ hours saved per month on invoice processing.
• Accurate financials: 100% of invoices are handled through either contract matching or AI coding. Rillion’s AI also predicts approval workflows, making sure invoices reach the right person quicker.
• Better visibility: All entities and their invoice flows are visible from a single dashboard.
• Faster month-end close: Accounts payable now closes the books by Workday 3.

“Without automation, we’d have to accrue way more invoices at month-end. With Rillion, most are already approved,” says Timo. 

More control, less risk

For a multi-national finance team, compliance and risk reduction are everything. With Rillion, Forenom strengthened their financial controls:

• Duplicate invoice warnings are automatic.
• Unknown suppliers are flagged for review.
• Automated four eyes' principles enforced by default.
• Supplier bank account mismatches are flagged.
• Approval limits are built-in.
• Real-time visibility into invoice flows, bottlenecks, and processing days.

“All the critical AP controls are automated now, and we’re able to monitor better,” says Timo.

Easy for finance — and everyone else

Even with 200 users across five countries, onboarding and training have been minimal.

“Rillion is intuitive — even for non-finance users. That saves our AP team a ton of time,” says Timo.

What’s next?

Forenom is now rolling out Rillion Analytics for even deeper insights and continuing to expand PO matching with their procurement team.

When asked if he would recommend Rillion to others considering switching AP automation systems, Timo’s answer is clear and simple:

“I recommend Rillion. We’re finally able to use our time for value-adding work — whatever that may be.”