Havant is enhancing SmartEX with AI through a partnership with identifAI

The native integration of technologies that detect AI-generated or AI-manipulated content strengthens controls over expense reports and enables the analysis of non-compliant behavior. Furthermore, thanks to its integration with AI-Docs, SmartEX intelligently extracts data from documents, enhancing the capabilities previously limited to OCR and streamlining the administrative department’s work throughout the entire expense report process.

Havant (formerly SB Italia) A digital innovation company for over 20 years and a leader in digital transformation and process digitization solutions, SmartEX announces a partnership with identifAI to enhance SmartEX, the expense management platform that covers the entire process—from expense capture to accounting in the management system—with approval workflows, integration with leading ERP suites, and comprehensive governance of rules, controls, and reports.

As part of this evolution, SmartEX has been further “enhanced” by integrating AI-Docs, the proprietary artificial intelligence platform that automates the extraction and structuring of data from supporting documents (receipts, invoices), significantly improving upon what is achievable with traditional OCR technology. The result is a simpler, faster, and more manageable process for Finance and Administration: fewer manual entries, greater data accuracy, and more effective controls throughout the entire expense report cycle.

The falsification of expense receipts is a growing phenomenon: with digital tools and generative AI, it is becoming increasingly easy to create or modify receipts and invoices, while it is becoming increasingly difficult for the administration to verify their authenticity. This leads to risks of improper reimbursements, policy non-compliance, and longer verification times.

To address this challenge, Havant has partnered with identifAI, a platform specializing in detecting digital content generated, manipulated, or altered by artificial intelligence. This integration enables SmartEX to introduce an additional layer of verification for the supporting documents attached to expense reports, directly within the approval workflow.

This innovation is part of a broader evolution of the platform: SmartEX integrates AI not only to “read” documents, but also to classify them and manage the entire process. On one hand, AI-Docs automatically extracts data from receipts and makes it available for pre-filling, verification, and accounting; on the other, identifAI enhances the ability to detect manipulation and suspicious content, increasing the reliability and compliance of expense report management.

“SmartEX was created to make expense report management more efficient, controllable, and integrated into enterprise processes. Today, however, the landscape has changed: falsifying receipts is now easier to do and harder to detect. With the evolution of SmartEX and the integration of AI-Docs, we automate data extraction from receipts, reducing manual tasks and the potential for error; while with the introduction of identifAI technologies, we enhance SmartEX to support administrative functions in verifying document authenticity and preventing fraud.” — Pietro Lanza, Managing Director & Board Member, Havant.

“The line between real content and content generated or manipulated by AI is becoming increasingly blurred. identifAI was created to provide practical tools that help individuals and organizations understand the origin of digital content. Integrating these capabilities into SmartEX means increasing transparency and trust in a sensitive process such as the verification of receipts and expense report compliance.” — Marco Ramilli, Founder & CEO, identifAI.

Through native integration, SmartEX enables advanced verification of expense receipts: scanned documents (such as images of receipts and invoices) can be analyzed by identifAI services for automatic assessment of the content’s origin.

When the analysis reveals signs of generation or manipulation (such as content potentially created or altered using AI tools), SmartEX classifies the expense as “suspicious” and triggers a dedicated verification workflow, routing the review to authorized verifiers. This makes the review process more targeted and effective, significantly reducing manual checks and overall validation times.

The benefits for companies include an improved ability to detect altered documents even when they appear visually credible, a reduction in administrative rework, and enhanced compliance and traceability throughout the entire reimbursement process, with evidence to support audits. Furthermore, integration with identifAI complements the SmartEX features already available for process control, such as the management of configurable rules and policies, consistency checks (amounts, dates, and categories), and the identification of duplicates and anomalies, thereby consolidating more robust and proactive governance. At the same time, AI-Docs enhances the effectiveness of these verifications by making data immediately available and comparable: the platform can thus apply controls and policies more quickly and consistently, reducing processing times, exceptions, and requests for additional information from employees.

Havant is also developing a further evolution of SmartEX, focused not only on verifying individual expense reports but also on “intelligently” analyzing the process as a whole: the goal is to use AI to detect anomalous behavior and operational patterns that are inconsistent with company policies, supporting Finance and HR in promptly identifying discrepancies and preventing fraud.

The AI is trained to identify recurring patterns, atypical frequencies, and suspicious combinations that, taken individually, might appear legitimate but become significant when observed over time or compared against internal rules. For example, the analysis can highlight the repetition of similar expenses within close time frames, the repeated use of categories with specific limits, the presence of “anomalous” sequences in the approval workflow, or the emergence of behaviors that do not align with the spending limits and travel rules established for a role, location, or user profile.

This feature builds on SmartEX’s existing capabilities, which allow policies to be customized by user, create alerts, and support administrative controls. The evolution, currently under development, aims to make these controls more proactive: not just “static rules,” but also the ability to recognize weak signals and borderline situations, so as to direct audits where they are truly needed and reduce time wasted on low-value-added controls.

From an operational standpoint, AI can help prioritize audits by suggesting a level of scrutiny for practices and transactions exhibiting higher risk indicators, making the work of administrative teams more efficient and improving the quality of oversight. In this way, SmartEX supports a more mature governance model: policies remain central, but are complemented by a system capable of capturing behavioral changes and promptly identifying potentially critical deviations from internal guidelines.

Looking ahead, this “behavioral” AI component integrates with the platform’s other capabilities—approval workflows, controls, reports, and configurable rules—to build a more effective and measurable expense reporting process, in which the company can increase compliance without burdening the user experience or multiplying manual verification tasks.