Celonis & Valence launch AI deductions disputes tool

Celonis and Valence Intelligence have launched an AI-based deductions and disputes management tool for finance teams that is intended to cut invoice deduction disputes from weeks to days.

The product, called Celonis Deductions & Disputes Manager by Valence, is designed for cases in which suppliers do not pay the full invoice amount and finance staff must determine whether deductions are valid. Those deductions can include claims for damaged goods, promotional discounts, late deliveries and billing errors.

Finance teams often handle that work through manual checks across emails, retailer portals, shipping records and internal systems. The new tool automatically gathers information from those sources and uses AI to assess whether a deduction should be accepted or challenged.

Deduction management is a significant issue for large businesses, especially in the consumer packaged goods sector, where deductions can account for 5% to 15% of gross sales.

How It Works

The software brings together data from enterprise resource planning systems, retailer portals and carrier websites into a single view. It also automates tasks such as coding deduction reasons, validating claims and collecting supporting records, including remittances and proofs of delivery.

According to the companies, the system gives finance teams a real-time view of deductions, recommendations on claims processing, and tools to send communications and pursue resolutions. It is also designed to identify disputed claims that may be invalid and support chargeback processes tailored to specific retailers.

Liam Mawe, global vice president of AI and industries at Celonis, described the operational burden facing finance departments.

"AI offers unprecedented opportunities in Finance operations, yet many teams remain with repetitive, manual tasks like reconciling line items and chasing proofs of delivery," Mawe said.

"The Deductions & Disputes Manager handles the messy operational complexity these teams face daily and gives AI the context it needs to successfully automate these workflows. Together, we are helping customers transform a slow, reactive process into a streamlined digital operation that protects cash flow and profitability," he added.

Platform Expansion

The release adds another product to the Celonis Platform Apps Program, which offers pre-built, domain-specific software from partner companies on the Celonis platform. Valence Intelligence focuses on extracting and structuring data from sources that are often difficult to process, such as retailer files, carrier documents and remittance records.

Kevin Cunnigham, chief executive officer of Valence Intelligence, said the product addresses a longstanding data problem in deduction workflows.

"Valence provides the agentic data layer that structures the messy retailer, carrier, and remittance data no one else can touch, turning unstructured PDF backups into clean, actionable data fed directly into the Celonis Platform. This is the first solution to manage deductions end-to-end, at any retailer, 1P or 3P, globally," Cunnigham said.

The launch reflects a broader push by software suppliers to apply AI to back-office finance processes that still depend heavily on labour-intensive reconciliation work. In deduction disputes, delays can tie up cash and leave companies spending substantial time on low-value administrative checks rather than prioritising claims recovery.

For consumer goods suppliers in particular, disputes can span multiple counterparties and systems, with evidence scattered across retailer portals, logistics records and internal invoices. That fragmentation has made automation difficult, especially when supporting documents arrive in unstructured formats such as PDFs.

The new tool is intended to address that problem by interpreting data from disparate sources and presenting it in a format finance teams can use to validate or contest deductions more quickly. That approach can shorten resolution times while helping businesses recover revenue that might otherwise be lost.

In sectors where deductions can represent as much as 15% of gross sales, even modest improvements in dispute handling can affect working capital and collections performance.