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Mohawk Industries offers an award-winning success story in electronic invoicing. Recipients of the Excellence Award in Electronic Invoicing at the 2010 PayStream ePayables Summit in Charlotte, Mohawk implemented eInvoicing in 2005.AP Manager Tracy Bryant of Mohawk Industries, the second largest manufacturer of commercial and residential flooring and carpet, shared the story of why Mohawk decided to change from paper to electronic. See her story here >>The justification for the decision is simple: Paper invoicing is too expensive. The combination of overhead, costly keying errors, and reliance on mail resulted in a call for change.Finding the Right PartnerAfter extensive research, Mohawk teamed up with OB 10 to provide eInvoice software. They were already in position to automate their PO invoices, which made up 72 percent of their volume. Their goals in the adaption included reduced processing costs and keying errors, same day processing, and better meeting the needs of their auditors.OB 10 played a critical role as a partner. They were the only solution that offered “any-to-any,” meaning that the vendor could place any format into any other format in the ERP system. This made practical sense for Mohawk’s employees. Every invoice has to pass through five to six checkpoints before it can enter the ERP system. It gets sent back to the vendor should it be rejected at any of the checkpoints.Tangible BenefitsFeatures of the electronic invoicing software through OB 10 have benefited vendors and Mohawk directly. Vendors have the ability to log-in to the portal to check the status of the invoice, reducing questions of invoice status. Mohawk benefits because their imaging department no longer has to sort mail, effectively reducing headcount.Through the assistance of OB 10, Mohawk strategically mapped out and targeted vendors to change to eInvoicing. Within 21 months, all those targets were met. It is an on-going process, however, as OB 10 develops a campaign annually with new vendors lists. Vendors are broken down into tiers by the volume of their yearly invoices, ranging from 500+ down to 30. At this point, 1500 vendors (60%) and 400,000 invoices (67%) are now processed electronically.The change in overhead for Mohawk has been remarkable. The AP department has been reduced from 55 to 25 employees since 2005. Their ROI, which was projected to occur by Year 3, came through within the first year of implementation.Lessons LearnedLeadership learned some valuable lessons throughout the transition from paper to electronic. Bryant noted that a loyal vendor base and strong management support from top to bottom were keys to success. Additionally, messages to vendors had to be clearly communicated. One of those messages is that paper invoices will be deleted. Finally, vendor follow-up has to be persistent.Mohawk is a classic example of how eInvoicing can effectively reduce costs of a company’s invoicing process. And they even have a trophy to prove it.
Southwest Airlines was in need of a new flight plan to overhaul their AP invoice process. Long, inefficient processing and duplicate invoices were the catalyst for a new program. Although they encountered some turbulence along the way, the impact on the AP department has been tremendous.
AP supervisors Michelle Price and Cicley Lopez recently presented their experiences at the 2010 PayStream ePayable Summit in Charlotte. They described their old “legacy process” and why it needed to be changed, adjustments that were made along the way, and the lessons they learned throughout the transition.
Southwest’s legacy process consisted of mainframe financials and three separate purchasing systems. Due to their paper-reliant system, they experienced a paper build-up through the creation of multiple copies of invoices by field offices. Invoices were sorted to one of 10 processing systems which slowed the entire process from entrance to AP to 14 days. Michelle Price explains the invoice process HERE >>>
Encouraged by CEO Gary Kelly, the department was challenged to create a world class design to tighten up the invoice approval and management process. The new plan took a three-tier approach and addressed invoice, payment, and cash management strategies.
The New Flight Plan
The invoice strategy was simple – streamline through automation. Cicley Lopez explains the decision to automate HERE >>> Managers sought to transition to paperless, reduce cycle time, move to electronic approvals, increase availability for the auditing department, and create a vendor portal. The payment strategy aimed to increase P-card usage, increase electronic fund transfers, and decrease the number of wires. In terms of cash management, they realized the need to increase their terms after conducting a benchmark study. They are currently implementing the Paylink program, which provides the ability to push a credit card payment to the vendor and extends payment terms.
Henry Ijams, PayStream’s lead architect, noted that Southwest’s world class design effectively cut the entire invoice process in half. Invoices are now prepared, scanned, and placed in to three specific queues (categorized by priority, PO, and preapproved). The pre-payment audit was eliminated and unapproved invoices are now electronically tracked. PayStream’s conference delegates were impressed with Southwest’s quick results.
Flight Changes
Southwest encountered several flight changes as the transition progressed. Some of the new software was not compatible with OCR, which had to be pushed back until summer 2011. Issues arose with response time in regards to automated approvals. Finally, the vendor portals were forced to be pushed back until next year because of commitments to multiple projects.
In order to keep impacted areas of the company in the loop, communications were sent out regularly so they could prepare and plan for changes. This was crucial for employees who had been using the old system for many years.
Once the initiative was cleared for take-off, there was a week of downtime between systems. A complete GL translation was necessary as well as preparation for scanning and reconfiguration of the scan room.
Frustration arose from the expectation that AP supervisors should have answers to all the questions. Fortunately, they had a hypercare team – a corporate level team to support SAP – on hand to offer expertise and answer questions regarding SAP.
Lessons Learned
Leadership learned a few lessons throughout the transition. The “Big Bang” theory – implementing different aspects simultaneously – was not the best option, especially when coupled with the 7,000 invoices that were backlogged from the week of downtime. They also ran into language differences between different vendors (i.e. ACH has different meanings for payments and airplane parts). They acknowledged that they would have provided more extensive training to account for changes and exceptions.
Despite the bumpy take-off, Southwest Airlines has successfully arrived in invoice automation that is now moving towards world class.
The changing dynamics in the payments industry led PayStream Advisors to believe there were new product opportunities for banks and solution providers in the B2B market. Recently released research proves they were right.
While checks remained the preferred method of B2B payments (72 percent), our research indicates that ACH payments were the preferred method among electronic payments, constituting 75 percent of ePayments [1]. A large number of enterprises prefer ACH over other electronic payment methods for its low cost, ease of integration with accounts payable systems, supplier acceptance, security, and protection against fraud. Recent PayStream survey data reveals that as many as 68 percent of U.S. enterprises have integrated ACH with their accounts payable system.
PayStream has recently released a Technology Insights Series report titled “Electronic Payments: Streamline P2P, Reduce Costs,” which provides detailed insights into the various ePayment mechanisms, the availability of remittance information with each payment type and evaluates the pros and cons of each. Click here to download the complimentary report >>
Based on an explosion of new methods to transmit remittance data along with ACH payments, PayStream’s analysts believe that U.S. ACH volume will spike in 2014 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 12 percent. PayStream’s research has uncovered a strong demand from suppliers who are seeking automation in response to the high growth of ACH. We believe this will be the tipping point for opportunities for new payment solutions that fill the remittance void.
PayStream also studied the effects of implementing ACH without remittance information (“naked ACH”). However, our research reveals that there is a surging demand for ACH payments that include remittance details, as opposed to simply naked ACH transactions. PayStream has coined the term ACH – R (ACH file with remittance details), which encompasses any type of ACH that includes enough detail to post a transaction to a biller’s AR file. ACH-R includes CTX, CCD+ and other payment types where the data is enhanced outside of the ACH system, such as email, XML file transfer, or via web interface as well as future potential formats, including XML and ISO 20022.
Led by the promotion of the STP 820 standard by the Electronic Payment Network (EPN), PayStream believes that we are about to see an increased demand for ACH-R. Of the total B2B ACH ePayments volume, PayStream estimates that only 312 million (18 percent) of all B2B ACH credit payments contain enough remittance information to be automatically posted to receiving companies’ billing or accounting systems.
Herein lies both the problem and the opportunity. Of the ACH-R ePayments, only 65 percent of the remittance data is transmitted via the ACH network. The rest of the remittance information (approximately 100 million transactions in 2009) was transmitted outside of the ACH network due to limitations in delivery integration points at the buyers’ or sellers’ financial accounting system.
PayStream believes the combination of increasing demand for remittance details for ACH payments and ACH payment transactions, along with challenges in fully leveraging the ACH network for remittance advice, offers a huge potential for accounting service providers and banking service providers to cater to the market’s changing needs.
[1] PayStream Advisors, Federal Reserve and NACHA 2009 annual volume statistics
Those interested in learning more about PayStream’s research should contact Mark Colwell, Solution Advisor at PayStream Advisors.
Invoice automation has become a hot topic amongst finance circles. A significant shift is beginning to shake the traditional corporate invoice and payment management paradigm. Innovative organizations are seeing tremendous potential around invoice automation - not just cost containment and productivity enhancement, but also spend management and working capital improvements. Owing to these factors, we are seeing a dramatic interest in accounts payable (AP) automation solutions, especially around electronic invoicing, imaging and automated workflow.
While numerous AP automation options have been available for many years, many organizations, especially small and medium-sized ones, are just now starting to dip their toes in the automation waters. What factors are driving this renewed interest in automating AP operations? Why does it make sense to automate now?
Benefits of Automation Get Clear
Organizations that were initially skeptical about AP technologies are learning from the experiences of their peers that have already automated and now see the tremendous potential of automating AP operations.
Focus on the Donut, Not the Hole
An increasing interest in transforming the accounts payable department from merely being a cost center to a profit center is driving organizations to seek out innovative means to achieve this objective.
Spotlight on Processing Costs
A competitive business environment is prompting organizations, especially in industries with lower margins and tighter cash flows, to focus on reducing processing costs and increasing efficiencies associated with invoices and employee expenses.
Cash is King in a Tough Economy
Streamlining the AP process has become extremely important in a tough economy where adequate cash flow and greater control over payables are critical in maintaining liquidity and sustaining business operations.
Early Payment Discounts Deliver High APR
Given the extremely low interest rates today, an increased interest in early payment discount capture is driving small and large organizations alike to investigate tools and technologies that enable them to compress their invoice receipt-to-approval cycles.
Innovative Delivery Models Lead to Rapid ROI
The evolution of on-demand and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery models has significantly lowered the upfront cost of implementing AP solutions and reduced the hassle of maintaining them.
Cost-Effective Solutions are the Key
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions that defer solutions costs over a longer period of time are appealing to companies that find it easier to get budgetary approval for operating expenses over capital expenditures.
Common Process for Paper and Electronic Invoices
The convergence of electronic invoicing and front-end invoice imaging presents organizations with a single, comprehensive solution that can manage both paper and electronic invoices through a common process.
Integrating Expense and Invoice Management
Availability of invoice and expense management capabilities from a common platform delivers a unified view into all non-payroll spend for organizations and allows them to leverage the same solution for both processes.
Making Suppliers Partners in Automation
Value added-services delivered by solution providers around supplier recruitment are enabling buyer organizations to bring suppliers onboard more quickly and overcome the hassle they face around lack of supplier adoption.
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.
As the world’s leading soft drink company with 92,800 employees and a presence in 200 nations, Coca-Cola has a lot to monitor. Company card programs are certainly no exception.
At the 2010 PayStream Summit, June 15-17 in Charlotte, Coca-Cola’s Patricia Bishop will discuss continuous transaction monitoring (CTM), a growing trend designed to counter card program issues such as abuse, misuse, errors, and policy violations. The continuous monitoring program at Coca-Cola has been successful in detecting fraud, inappropriate behavior, policy violations, and waste, and as such has had demonstrable impact on the corporate audit department, travel management, expense and card programs, and most importantly, the bottom line.
The need for continuous monitoring programs is illustrated by research which has shown that organizations lose 5% of their revenue as a result of fraud. Research has also shown that 19% of business travelers admitted to exaggerating their expense reports.
When establishing a continuous monitoring program, it is important to clearly define and document program objectives as well as how success will be measured. As part of the selection process, it is critical to ensure that the technology vendor spends time understanding the complexity and the details of the business. To find the right fit, Coca-Cola conducted primary and secondary research in choosing the right technology for implementing their card program, brainstorming and piloting some 55 audit tests, revising audit test objectives, reviewing available solutions, and making reference calls to customers of their current vendor.
It is equally important to manage expectations with stakeholders and the vendor. This includes defining success, quantifying and measuring key metrics, and defining governance and reporting for the program in advance. It is vital to carry the mindset that this is an operational program that encompasses people, processes, and technology. It is also beneficial to meet with others utilizing the tool to understand risks and what was needed to transform their organization and effectively implement the program.
To get the full picture of Coca-Cola’s experience with CTM, join us at PayStream Summit this month. 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.
PayStream’s recent survey of procurement professionals from over 350 U.S.-based businesses reveals a renewed interest in Web-enabled procurement solutions – especially applications that have been enhanced by purchasing cards, approval workflow technologies and integration with online vendor catalogs.
Benefits of Automation Become Clear
Automating the procurement process delivers a number of tangible benefits – depending on the breadth of the solution implemented and the extent of integration with other processes in the finance department. Our survey revealed that, on average, adopter organizations can expect to achieve the following benefits:
Lower transaction processing costs and the ability to significantly compress order cycle times.
Lower transaction processing costs and the ability to significantly compress order cycle times.
Increased compliance with corporate policies and reduction in maverick/ad hoc spending.
Visibility across the entire spend management process in real-time to authorized system users.
Ability to consolidate spend across the entire organization to negotiate bulk discounts/ preferential pricing with suppliers.
Ability to view spend as it happens and compare it against budgets, instead of looking at it after the fact.
Comprehensive audit trails, with date and time stamps, for every action taken by every user within the system.
Higher employee productivity and satisfaction with the availability of an easy-to-use, intuitive system.
Key Procurement Metrics to Track
“What gets measured gets done” is an old adage which is still very applicable to any business, or any task for that matter. The procurement process has a number of moving parts and people and unless certain metrics are identified and performance measured against these indicators, it is quite likely that something will fall through the cracks.
KPIs should be measured at least once every quarter or six months. These metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) become all the more critical when a company is going through a merger or acquisition, new technology implementation or organization restructuring. Measuring and comparing KPIs before and after any of these are a good indication of the impact it had on the procurement process.Here are some key KPIs procurement departments should track on a periodic basis:
Percent of total spend under management of the procurement group
Cost to process/complete a single requisition-to-order cycle
Number of days to complete a requisition-to-order cycle
Percent of total spend that is maverick/ad hoc/off contract
Percent of suppliers accounting for 80 percent of spending
Cost savings as a percentage of total spend and managed spend
Keep watching this space for more information on electronic procurement based on our survey results – challenges, benefits, best practices and gaining supplier acceptance.
The Accounts Payable (AP) department has long suffered the stigma of being called a “cost center” or “black hole” from which money is constantly flowing out. Especially in recent times, with the spotlight turned on AP, the hole has become more noticeable. But just as every cloud has a silver lining, this added emphasis on the operations of the AP department has brought about a paradigm shift in the traditional invoice and payment management process. Increasingly, financially savvy managers understand that the AP department has tremendous potential to deliver strategic benefits around supplier relations and working capital improvements.
Traditionally, the enemy of radical improvements in the financial supply chain has been an over-reliance on people and paper-based processes, which result in lengthy processing cycles, slow and delayed payments, and unhappy suppliers. However, all of this is changing. On the one side, heightened visibility has led to a growing awareness among financial managers that things are changing, with or without their approval. On the other hand, robust and easy-to-use electronic payment (ePayment) options — such as ACH and purchasing cards — are widely available in the market today, and are opening the doors for innovative AP and finance departments to take control of supplier payments and shine in the limelight.
Payments are the final step in the invoice receipt-to-pay processing cycle. With significant effort spent on the initial stages of accounts payable processing that includes invoice receipt, workflow, and matching, organizations must not experience failure in exchanging payments in a timely and cost-effective manner. Electronic payment methods allow processing of payments in a faster, cheaper, and more convenient manner than paper-based checks. Given the tangible benefits electronic payments deliver over paper-based checks, it is not surprising that adoption of the various formats of electronic payments has significantly increased over the past five years, while check usage is on a decline.
Figure 1: Change in Usage of Payment Methods
PayStream has developed a Technology Insight Series report — Electronic Payments: Streamline Purchase-to-Pay, Reduce Costs — to provide an overview of the electronic payment landscape and address the following questions generally asked by finance managers:
What challenges are organizations facing when it comes to manual settlement processes? What factors are driving the migration from paper checks to electronic payments?
In spite of the widespread availability of ePayments and their tangible benefits, why are more than 75 percent of B2B payments settled via checks? What barriers are hindering further adoption of ePayments and how can they be overcome?
What are the different types of electronic payments? How do ACH payments, wire transfers, and purchasing card transactions differ from one another? What benefits does each ePayment tool deliver?
What related developments in the procure-to-pay space are impacting the growth of electronic payments? Where does ePayments fit in a broader P2P automation roadmap?
What are the functional components of an ePayment solution? Who are the key players in this space? What solution functionality is available from these technology vendors?
What are some of the best practices innovator companies are following in order to streamline their payment processes and increase the usage of electronic payments?
The report also features profiles of five leading providers in the electronic payments space – American Express, Bottomline Technologies, J.P. Morgan, TradeCard and Vendorin.
Payments Convergence Conference
PayStream has created the annual ePayments Convergence event to meet the needs of sophisticated finance professionals who are aggressively seeking to improve their penetration of ePayments, and who desire high-quality information to drive decision making. This two day event is held in June each year to showcase leading practices by corporate innovators.For more information, go to www.paystreamsummit.com.
Hype to hope to disappointment and finally acceptance and adoption – electronic procurement has experienced an extremely interesting lifecycle. During the early 2000s when it was fashionable to add the word “electronic” to every initiative, procurement automation appeared on a number of corporate agendas. A plethora of electronic procurement solutions cropped up in the marketplace and organizations were rushing to implement these in hopes of achieving tremendous cost savings, enhanced spend management capabilities and improved supplier relations.
Unfortunately, not every adopter of e-procurement saw the anticipated benefits materialize. Over the years, organizations have learned a big lesson; technology is not the be-all-and-end-all of an automation initiative; it is just an enabler. The key to a successful e-procurement program lies in the redesign of the procurement process and a strong strategy to leverage the available technology to meet each organization’s specific business requirements.
PayStream’s recent survey of procurement professionals from over 350 U.S.-based businesses reveals a renaissance of interest in Web-enabled procurement solutions – especially applications that have been enhanced by purchasing cards, approval workflow technologies and integration with online vendor catalogs.
Usage of Electronic Procurement Solutions
PayStream’s survey revealed that more than half (61%) of the companies that participated in the survey are currently using an electronic procurement solution. Almost half the adopters have been using their e-procurement solution for over five years.
Figure 1: Where does your organization stand when it comes to the usage of an electronic procurement solution?
Another 13 percent are evaluating e-procurement solutions for implementation over the next six months. What are the driving forces behind organizations’ need to implement or improve an electronic procurement solution? Almost a third (66%) of the companies surveyed stated that the biggest factor driving them down this route was the need to improve compliance – whether it was with contract terms, negotiated prices or regulatory requirements. This was followed by the need to lower costs, accelerate the requisition-to-order cycle and reduce maverick spend. In today’s economic climate, it is not surprising that every organization is looking for ways to drive costs out of the equation.
What is Holding Electronic Procurement Back?
Given that electronic procurement delivers tangible results, what is the reason more companies have not implemented a solution to automate their procurement process? According to our survey, the biggest barrier to the adoption of e-procurement is resistance to chance. Senior management’s belief that “current processes work” even though they may not be the most efficient is hampering e-procurement initiatives that more than a third (35%) of companies surveyed.
This was followed by a lack of understanding of solutions currently available, which was stated as a reason by 28 percent of organizations. In order to educate companies and help them overcome this hurdle, PayStream is developing a Technology Insights Series report titled “CFO’s View of Electronic Procurement” which will be released later this year.
Keep watching this space for more information on electronic procurement based on our survey results – challenges, benefits, best practices and gaining supplier acceptance.
One of the major barriers hindering electronic invoicing initiatives is gaining supplier adoption. Persuading suppliers to change their processes to align with buyer’s needs is a costly and time-consuming process, and success depends largely on the buyers’ ability to present a compelling value proposition to suppliers.
One option that organizations are pursuing to overcome this challenge is utilizing outsourcing services in conjunction with electronic invoicing initiatives. Under this scenario, suppliers that are reluctant to join an e-invoicing network, continue to send paper invoices. But instead of mailing them to the buyer’s AP department, suppliers send these invoices to a processing center managed by the e-invoice solution provider. At these processing centers, the documents are scanned and data is extracted from the paper invoices and converted into an electronic format. Data from both the paper and electronic invoices is then available for processing through a single unified platform.
Electronic invoicing solutions were explicitly designed to facilitate external buyer-supplier interactions, while front-end imaging applications evolved to meet organizations’ internal needs around invoice receipt and management. However, over the last few years, we have seen a convergence in invoice management landscape with both types of providers partnering or developing functionality to offer comprehensive solutions covering paper and electronic invoices and incorporating better options for invoice receipt, approval processing, and discrepancy resolution.
Benefits of Outsourcing Imaging and Data Capture
Buyer Side Benefits:
Organizations receive all their invoices in an electronic format, from day one, without having to wait to onboard a critical mass of suppliers on the e-invoicing network.
The AP department receives all invoices in a common format, irrespective of the channel of entry. The same robust validation rules that are applied to electronic invoices can be used to validate paper invoices as well.
Buyer organizations can see a reduction in FTE and processing costs that were originally associated with imaging and data entry from paper invoices.
Most third party outsourcing providers guarantee a 24 hour turnaround for invoice entry, which significantly compresses the invoice receipt-to-pay cycle, thereby allowing organizations to capture more early payment discounts.
Fewer supplier inquiries into invoice and payment status as suppliers have visibility into the entire process.
Supplier Side Benefits:
Requires minimal changes to the supplier-side process; Suppliers only have to change the address to which they mail in the paper invoices.
Suppliers have real-time visibility into invoice status - whether the invoice is being reviewed, is approved or is under dispute. Further, suppliers can speed up the process by submitting comments or supporting documents, if needed.
Electronic invoicing, combined with outsourced data capture, compresses the approval cycle, ensuring that suppliers are paid on time, or even early in some cases.
