A Texas dealership group is testing AI-driven invoice processing and considering automation across finance and insurance compliance.

Autobahn has eight locations around its Fort Worth home and carries luxury brands such as BMW, Cadillac, Mini, Volvo and Porsche. The group is piloting capabilities from cloud technology company Tekion, including automating vendor invoice capture and review, Chad Johnson, chief financial officer at Autobahn Fort Worth, told FinAi News’ sister publication Auto Finance News.

Automation is a “rapidly expanding part of the business” in line with the wider automotive industry, as consumers and businesses want to do more online, he said.

“The people that embrace AI [and] automation … are going to have a big leg up in the competition over the next several years,” Johnson said.

Pilot testing

Autobahn has been piloting Tekion’s Accounts Payable AI tool for the past few months, Johnson said. The tool allows dealerships to automate invoice processing by capturing details, matching purchase orders, identifying mismatched information and routing approvals, according to the fintech.

“Because [Tekion is] one unified system, the reconciliation of the invoice into our ledger is automatic,” Tekion Chief Technology Officer Binu Mathew told AFN.

The change is expected to reduce expenses, Johnson said.

“It’s reduced data entry [and] duplicate invoices,” he said, noting that Autobahn eventually plans to use Tekion’s technology to also pay bills.

Autobahn has been using Tekion since it switched from a legacy dealer management system in 2023, Johnson said, noting that the cloud-based technology is better suited for long-term sustainability.

The dealership began piloting the accounts payable tool in April and can pilot new Tekion technology for free if the group provides weekly feedback, a Tekion spokesperson told AFN.

“Tekion committed to … making it a fully embedded solution with everything living natively inside of Tekion,” Johnson said, adding that he sat on Tekion’s product council and had insight into what capabilities would be added down the road.

Tekion launches new tools

Tekion unveiled Accounts Payable AI alongside three other products during its Tekion One event last month in Las Vegas. According to a release, the other tools were:

• F&I Manager AI, which helps F&I teams identify incomplete checklist items, missing documents and potential compliance issues before submission;
• T1 Pro, an AI interface within Tekion’s AI-native automotive retail cloud platform that speeds dealership workflows and efficiency; and
• Salesperson AI, a CRM AI agent that provides responses to sales leads about pricing, availability and vehicle details, and assists with follow-up and appointment scheduling.

Autobahn eventually plans to use Tekion’s F&I compliance technology, Johnson said.

“They will be able to use AI to validate each of the compliance pieces that are required in a deal,” improving the F&I sales process for dealers and customers, he said.

F&I Manager solves “the biggest problem” with businesses in the industry by reducing the “sheer amount of work that it takes to stay compliant,” Mathew said.

“AI streamlines [and] provides the information at the right time in the right place and makes the process as friction-free as possible,” he said.

The rollout of new innovations follows Tekion’s integration with Capital One subsidiary Brex last month for Tekion Spend, which provides bill pay, corporate card and expense management capabilities.

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