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Counterparty verification: the cost of automation
Short answer
Checking a bank account in Poland's VAT payer register often needs neither AI nor an app of your own. Automation makes sense when an employee regularly retypes identifiers, saves confirmations and links them to a case in another system. At Syntalith it costs from €3,000 net. At 600 checks a month at 6 minutes each, it pays back in 1.7 months.
How we workDetails ↓
- 01Call30 minutes with an engineer, free
- 02PrototypeA working system on your process and data, free
- 03ImplementationTarget and fixed price in the contract; 50% at signing
- 04Acceptance50% once the agreed target is met
- net for the automation of one process, paid once
- from €3,000
- from signing the contract to acceptance
- 2–6 weeks
- free prototype on your cases
- €0
We belong to the OpenAI and Anthropic partner programmes and learn through their official courses. What this means ↓
Author: Syntalith · 3 min read
Statistics
Automation in companies: statistics 2026
1.7 mo.
payback of a €3,000 automation at 600 counterparty checks a month: €2,094 by hand, €317 with checking and the model. Scenario.
17.8%
According to Statistics Poland (GUS, 2026), 17.8% of Polish companies use AI technologies.
20.0%
According to Eurostat (2025), 20.0% of EU companies with at least 10 employees used AI.
50%
According to the European Commission (2026), half of EU SMEs and mid-caps name high investment costs as a barrier to AI.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer on AI (2026) ↗
90%
According to the European Commission (2026), 90% of EU companies that use AI say people take the decisions.
Source: European Commission, Flash Eurobarometer on AI (2026) ↗
Figures checked: 22 October 2026
Start with the question the source answers
Poland's Ministry of Finance describes a search in the VAT payer register (the „white list”) for a chosen day and a check of the link between a NIP or REGON number and a bank account. The result comes with an electronic confirmation of the query (the Polish tax administration's guide).
The register answers the question about the data in the register. It does not say whether a company will pay, deliver a service, or whether a message about a changed account comes from an authorised person. Do not add those conclusions in an AI summary. The company settles the legal scope of the checks with its own specialists.
A few checks a week
the search in the register
€0
A fixed identifier, the confirmation saved with the case
automation on rules
from €3,000
Correspondence in many shapes and a description of discrepancies
automation with AI
from €3,000
No answer is a separate state
A purchase list contains two entities with similar names. One has a correct NIP, the other only a shortened name. The first goes to the check, and the second needs its identity established before it gets a result.
| State | What to keep with the case |
|---|---|
| Result received | Parameters, the day of the data, the time of the query and the confirmation |
| Incomplete identifier | The missing field and a question for the person who raised the request |
| Source unavailable | A note of the failed attempt and the next step |
| Data changed | The previous result and the reason for a new check |
An empty answer must not turn into „not found” or „checked”. If the project supports an AML procedure, first separate collecting data from the duties of an obliged entity.
What it costs and when it pays back
- Today
- 600 checks × 6 min = 60 h (€2,094)
- With the system a person checks the output in 15% of the time
- €314
- Model, 1 call per case, Claude Sonnet 5.5
- €3
- Cost of one case
- €3.49 today, €0.53 with the system
- Saving
- €1,777 a month
Payback of €3,000
1.7 months
The volume, the time and the checking share are the scenario's assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat. Model: 1,500 input tokens and 300 output tokens per call at Anthropic's rates, at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026.
The model is a small item here, because rules handle the query by identifier. AI works on the correspondence and the discrepancies. Add access to paid sources and upkeep after an interface change to the budget.
What raises the cost of the project
Number of sources
one or several
Each register has a different interface, limits and access terms.
Frequency
once or on a cycle
Checking again before a payment is different work from checking when a relationship starts.
Where it is saved
the case in your system
The confirmation has to reach the right case with the date and the parameters.
An account number from an email needs the request itself confirmed, as we describe in workflows for bank detail changes.
How to order the first scope
- 01SourceChoose one source and one decision an employee makes.
- 02CasesFictitious cases with complete data, an ambiguous entity and a reading error.
- 03BasisAgree how to reproduce the basis of a result.
- 04StopDecide when work stops because information is missing.
Syntalith builds a counterparty verification workflow with separately agreed access to the sources. For the conversation, a description of your current check is enough, without a supplier list or account data. When the quote concerns one company and the order comes from another, see comparing buyer data in B2B sales.
Worked example · Scenario
How we count the payback: counterparty verification
We run the same count for your process in the free process review.
€1,047
a month for checking 60 counterparties by hand
Payback: 3.4 mo.
30 minutes to check a counterparty and checking in 15% of the old time are our assumptions. €34.90 an hour is the EU average hourly labour cost for 2025 according to Eurostat, for companies with 10 or more employees. We measured the model cost of the simpler profile, €0.009, in our counterparty profile system, converted at the ECB rate of 1.1205 USD per euro on 22 October 2026. Avoided losses are a scenario: we assume that 1 in 800 counterparties checked is a company that would not have paid, and that the check protects €6,900 on average. In the review we calculate it on your receivables.
See the full calculation →
