Fluid Invoice Processing
Paulaner receives around 40,000 purchase invoices a year, primarily from suppliers of raw materials, glasses, merchandise and services to the brewery, e.g. for its marketing, maintenance or restaurant and catering activities.
Key Challenges
Previously, these were all entered into the SAP purchase invoice ledger by the Accounts Payable department and a hard copy sent to the person responsible by internal mail for countersignature. The invoices were then returned to Accounts Payable by the same route. Or at least that was the theory: occasionally an invoice would be inadvertently sent to the wrong person and so got lost in transit. Reminders were the order of the day and not enough advantage was taken of early payment discounts.
Despite this complex procedure, Accounts Payable still could not track the location of a particular invoice at a given time. Another downside was the archiving process: each invoice had to be subsequently scanned by an external service provider, and the scanned image assigned in SAP.
The introduction of an automated invoice processing system was to change all this. Paulaner wanted greater transparency, increased
effi ciency and less paper in its invoicing workflow. In other words, the Accounting department should have a better overview of invoices and their current status. The goal: more use of early payment discounts and
fewer reminders.
Solution: Basware Invoice Processing
In early fall 2005, Paulaner opted for the Basware solution. Implementation began shortly afterwards, with brewery staff and Basware experts working hand in hand. Thanks to its flexible design, Basware software can be fully customized to individual customer requirements and work processes. A project team made up of representatives of the Accounting,Purchasing, Marketing and Customer Support departments defi ned the requirements for the Basware client. The master screen was developed in close cooperation between the Accounting and Controlling departments and the Basware experts. All in all, the implementation process ran smoothly and effi ciently — despite the extensive SAP account allocations which had to be implemented in the Basware solution. After a successful test run, the software went live in March 2006.
Paper-based purchase invoices are now scanned and after they have been assigned to the relevant account(s), invoices are sent directly by
e-mail to the relevant person for authorization. If a prompt response is not received, the Accounting department can verify the current location
of a particular invoice literally at the press of a button. This provides the required high level of visibility and ensures that the company is able to capitalize on early payment discounts.
The Basware software provides the Accounting department, external sales staff and individual members of staff responsible for authorizing purchase invoices (including the Engineering and Purchasing departments) with a far greater level of transparency to the invoice workflow. Since the client requirementapplication is very intuitive and easy-to-use, trainings were kept to a minimum — even for Master and Monitor users.
Benefits
- More advantage taken of payment discounts
- Significantly fewer payment reminders
- Quicker invoice process
- Reduced costs — not least because there is no need to scan invoices later
- Less paper — invoice workflow predominantly automated