Straight-Through Processing (STP)

tl;drStraight-through processing (STP) is when a transaction moves from initiation to completion without manual intervention at any step in between.

A bill arrives, gets coded, matched against a purchase order, approved under the right policy, and posted, with no one touching it by hand unless something falls outside the rules.

STP has existed in payments and trading for decades. What's new is bringing it to the parts of accounting that used to require judgment: matching an invoice to a PO with a small price variance, routing an unusual expense to the right approver, catching a duplicate payment before it goes out. AI agents make this possible, because they can apply judgment to the exception instead of just executing a fixed rule.

The test of real STP isn't how many transactions are automated. It's how few require a human to open the file at all.

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