Southwest Airlines had a long-running legacy process to handle their invoices. Their mainframe, which inconveniently consisted of several departments, dated back to 1986 and was to blame for their 14-day invoice processing system.
AP supervisors Cicely Lopez and Michelle Price will discuss the overhaul that Southwest has recently undergone at the 2010 PayStream Summit on June 15-17 in Charlotte. The new plan took a three-tier approach that affected invoice, payment, and cash management strategies.
The invoicing strategy created a paperless environment, reduced cycle times, established electronic approvals, increased audit availability, and created a vendor portal. The payment strategy increased P-card usage, increased electronic funds transfers, and decreased wires. The cash management strategy increased payment terms and placed an emphasis on discounts.
The impact on the invoice process is tremendous. Invoices are now received by mail, fax and e-mail. Those invoices are then sorted, scanned, and stored for 90 days before they are destroyed. The old 14-day process was cut by more than half to a 4-7 day operation.
The new design also tightened up several facets of the company. Southwest was able to reduce staff by eight processors. Work queues were reduced from ten to three. The mailroom turned its focus to scan preparation and expense reporting was moved to the SAP Employee portal.
Join us at PayStream Summit on June 15-17 to gain further insight into Southwest’s innovative overhaul from the project managers themselves. Participate in this and a broad range of other sessions geared towards broadening your understanding of automation technology. For a full schedule and more information about the 2010 Summit, please visit http://www.paystreamsummit.com.
