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How 5 Innovative Companies Automated PO Matching
 How 5 Innovative Companies Automated PO Matching 150 150 Tim Robertson
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automated po matching

PO matching, or matching invoices, purchase orders and goods receipts is always a challenge for growing companies.

For one, if the process is paper driven, the process is prone to error and considerable mind-numbing effort hunting down all the relevant information. Data has to matched by physically examining each and every document, line by line.

Some invoices have over 100 lines. It’s not like reading a letter or other document that has variations, titles, and pictures, but closer to scanning a dry list of serial numbers – headache inducing at the best of times.

Secondly, because of all the people involved in a purchase, there is much finger-pointing over which department (or approver) is causing a bottleneck, or is responsible for mistakes.

We have helped the following innovative companies who are using NetSuite automate their PO matching with EchoVera’s AP Automation for NetSuite. They’ve benefited from having an approval workflow for exceptions that utilizes email approvals to make it easy, and automation that matches invoices, POs, and goods receipts.

In every case they have decided their teams have better things to do than trudge through the matching process manually – a very common practice in many companies without the technology. As well, AP is no longer blamed for not keeping the process moving, as the invoice status can be viewed 24/7 in real time, showing exactly where the holdup is.

Roivant – Healthcare

automated PO matchingRoivant is a pharmaceutical company with over 70 subsidiaries. The high profile firm landed a $1.1 Billion investment by SoftBank and develops late stage drugs. The investment by SoftBank was one of the largest private financing rounds in history for a healthcare company.

Pharmaceutical firms abandon promising drugs for various reasons that have nothing to do with their efficacy. Roivant’s subsidiaries complete the development of overlooked drug candidates and try to get them to market quickly. Although their recent drug for Alzheimers has not panned out, there are many potential winners in the pipeline. With a dozen different subsidiaries the company needed to automate PO matching and increase their operational efficiency.

Roivant receives PDF invoices and PDFs of scanned invoice images. They are matching service and product POs as well as invoices and goods receipts. Once the PO is created, it is auto delivered. Whatever lines are available on the PO are used. As an example, 30 lines on one invoice have to be rolled up into one line. Most of the invoices are “pass-through invoices” with up to 300 lines of items.

Aleva Stores – Retail Ecommerce

automated PO matchingAleva Stores began in 1957 as a small prosthetics manufacturer in Pontiac, Michigan. Over the last 60 years, the Gaskins family has upheld the values established by founder Joseph Gaskins, creating a family of retail brands that specialize in foot, leg and orthopedic care. Some of the online stores include Sock Addicts, Pike to Peak, and Doc Ortho. With warehouse space of over 60,000 square feet and sales north of $30M annually, Aleva was looking to automate the PO matching process and optimize their AP processes.

What they are matching: Aleva receives invoices in the format of PDF and PDFs of scanned invoice images. They match merchandise purchase orders to invoices and goods receipts. Aleva issues a PO, receives an invoice from the supplier and a goods receipt from the warehouse. Some invoices have over 100 lines and up to 20 pages.

Find out more about EchoVera ASAP PO Matching for NetSuite here.

Boston Globe – Media

automated PO matchingThe Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1872. In 1993 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of The New York Times Company when the Times acquired Affiliated Publications for $1.1 Billion. In 2013, Boston Red Sox owner John Henry was part of a group that bid $70 million to buy the paper, and remains in place as the owner today. The Boston Globe hosts 28 blogs covering a variety of topics including Boston sports, local politics and the paper’s opinion writers.

The Globe wanted to reduce its reliance on paper processes and digitally transform the back office. They turned to EchoVera ASAP to automate PO matching.

The Globe receives invoices in PDF format from its suppliers, including scanned images in PDF format. It matches between service and product purchase orders and invoices. Matching is done by approvers in the email approval workflow.

Ulabox – Grocery Ecommerce

automated PO matchingThe VIKOW Group is based in Barcelona in Spain. It’s a group of digital companies offering a range of services and products around ecommerce. One of its properties is Ulabox, which operates as an online supermarket of food, groceries, beverages, household and personal care products. Ulabox was incorporated in 2010 and has received several funding rounds totalling €5,750,000.

With around 7,000 deliveries per week from a range of 20,000 products, the highly automated internet company relies on data to review the cost of orders, deliveries, profitability and business data.

Ulabox needed the best technology for PO matching and AP automation.

Ulabox receives PDF invoices from their suppliers, and well as PDFs of scanned invoice images. EchoVera ASAP is matching merchandise purchase orders, external purchase orders from their fresh food system (which is separate from NetSuite), as well as invoices and goods receipts.

Transtelco – Voice & Data Services

automated PO matchingTranstelco provides telecommunication solutions for carriers, enterprises, and small to medium businesses in the United States and Mexico. Cofounded by Miguel Fernandex in 2001, it provides voice and data services to Fortune 1000 companies with a fiber optic network that spans 10,000 kilometres between both countries. It recently raised new debt capital from Deutsche Bank in order to fund new opportunities. Mr. Fernandex has been featured in the Huffington Post dispelling the myths of the Mexican – U.S. border.

The company reached out to EchoVera for help with automating their AP and matching POs.

Transtelco receives PDF invoices, Excel and MS Word invoices, and images scanned as a PDF. ASAP matches product purchase orders, service purchase orders, invoices and goods receipts.

Find out more about EchoVera PO Matching for your ERP here.

Read our Whitepaper on PO Matching for NetSuite

Canadian Cloud Automation Company Surpasses $1 Billion Processing Mark
 Canadian Cloud Automation Company Surpasses $1 Billion Processing Mark 150 150 Tim Robertson
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AP AUTOMATIONPR Release: Toronto, Ontario – May 11, 2017 

EchoVera, an accounts payable automation solutions provider, has surpassed the $1B mark in the processing of invoices for major corporations in the U.S., Canada, and Europe. AP departments use EchoVera’s technology to optimize and automate the approval process for invoices, purchase orders, and goods receipts.

Central to the solution is Intelligent OCR, a system that uses Artificial Intelligence to scan both email and paper invoices to capture relevant data. A shared central dashboard by Palette Software provides an approval workflow for managers to code and approve invoices on mobile devices. A three way “matching engine” matches invoices to purchase orders and goods receipts, and sends non-PO invoices and exceptions to the people in the organization who need to approve them.

Ralf Leitner, CEO of EchoVera said, “Both Intelligent OCR and Palette Software provide a Purchase to Pay automation platform that helps our clients optimize their operations, reduce the manual handling and errors associated with paper processes, and decrease their environmental footprint.”

EchoVera was one of the first technology companies to invest in a cloud infrastructure for its AP automation solutions. Waterloo-based Watserv provides SOC2 compliant cloud operations in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

Visit the EchoVera AP Automation page for more information.

On Twitter, follow @EchoVera

About EchoVera:
EchoVera Inc. provides Intelligent Capture and Automated Purchase to Pay solutions to companies and organizations looking to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of their accounts payable operations. With offices in Toronto, Calgary, and Ottawa, EchoVera brings over thirty years of experience to clients around the world.

Contact Information:
Ralf Leitner, CEO
EchoVera Inc.
100 Dupont Street
Toronto, ON CAN
M5R 1V2
416 968-2335
sales@echovera.com
echovera.ca

Finance Top 2 Priorities for 2016: AP Automation
 Finance Top 2 Priorities for 2016: AP Automation 150 150 Tim Robertson
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Accounts Payable Automation Priorities….
The message is clear – finance people want Accounts Payable automation to increase visibility, minimize the need to handle paper documents and reduce the risk of error in the AP process.

The message is clear – finance people want accounts payable automation to increase visibility, minimize the need to handle paper documents and reduce the risk of error in the AP process. According to The Institute of Finance & Management’s (IOFM) recent survey of several thousand North American AP financial professionals, when asked to list their “top two priorities for the next 12 months” the respondents listed these as two of the most important issues for their organizations for the coming year:

  • Automated Workflows for Invoice Approval 39%
  • Automated Workflows for Invoice Exceptions 37%

This is what we do. Having worked with organizations for over ten years, we understand the complexities inherent in moving information throughout your organization. Experienced at helping companies fine tune and streamline these processes, we do this by minimizing the manual touch points at which so many of your problems occur and in doing so we reduce errors and increase visibility and efficiency.

When researching the most appropriate and cost effective AP automation solution keep these points in mind. You will want to implement a solution that is easily configured, flexible and user friendly. And of course, your solution must increase efficiency and be cost effective.

Things to Consider:

Document matching and routing

Invoices should be automatically matched with purchase orders, contracts or other sources of identification- employee name, office location, department – then routed via workflow to relevant person for approval or exception handling, depending on your processing requirements.

Coding and approval

You should be able to set your own rules and based upon these rules, the correct account postings should be added to the invoice, which can then be automatically transferred to the correct approval workflow. Some solutions can even add workflow steps if additional approvals are needed based upon your specified authorization levels.

The more user-friendly solutions will allow your administrators to control your approval hierarchies, authorization amounts, account coding templates, workflow design, users and other critical business criteria.

Workflow configuration

The more advanced solutions feature a graphical designer that can be used by your administrators to quickly and easily create workflows and matching selections to meet your ever changing environment.

The Boston Globe Integrates NetSuite AP Automation
 The Boston Globe Integrates NetSuite AP Automation 150 150 Tim Robertson
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purchase.to.pay

The Boston Globe, one of North America’s major daily newspapers, has deployed an advanced web-based financial management solution from enterprise purchase-to-pay specialist Palette. It integrates NetSuite AP Automation platform PaletteInvoice to streamline its invoice processing and improve operational efficiencies.

Working with Palette’s Toronto-based partner EchoVera, The Boston Globe uses PaletteInvoice to ensure that the 20,000 supplier invoices it manages annually are processed, approved and scheduled for payment quickly and efficiently. PaletteInvoice will also enable The Globe to achieve significant measurable cost-savings and efficiency gains by simplifying daily processing of supplier invoices and purchase order matching.

Diane Stack, Payroll Manager for The Boston Globe, said: “PaletteInvoice has enabled us to enhance our invoicing processes and efficiencies without the need for a larger finance team, and at a highly competitive price point compared to other solutions. It has provided greater transparency over accounts payable activity across the entire organization, enabling us to have a much tighter control over operations, more closely monitor KPIs, track payments and have a greater ability to manage volumes of work. We now have much better reporting that enables us to ensure that all invoices are paid in a timely, fully automated manner, significantly reducing the resource required to manage invoice processing.”

Following the success of the initial deployment, The Globe is now looking to add PaletteBuyer, a module that will help control their indirect spend by automating the requisitioning and purchase order process. It is anticipated that the deployment will be completed in time for the solution to go live on January 1st 2016.

Stack added: “The Invoice module deployment has delivered a strong return on investment, proving the value of Palette’s solutions. As a result of this success we are currently adding the Buyer module which we anticipate will greatly improve our cost and spend control across the business, tightening spend approval processes and creating an enhanced audit trail for all purchases.”

Ralf Leitner, CEO of EchoVera said:  “PaletteArena has a track record of delivering a clear return on investment which makes it an attractive proposition to our customers. The fact that it can integrate with NetSuite to help deliver a fully automated accounts payable process is a key differentiator that adds real value to our customers’ deployments.”

Michael Cichy, General Manager Americas at Palette commented: “The partnership with The Boston Globe is the launch of a major initiative to integrate ourselves with other NetSuite customers and develop another vertical ERP practice in the North American market. We are hopeful that a successful implementation will help us further develop the relationship with The Globe’s ownership and see further projects in the future.”

Palette’s core product suite, The PaletteArena Suite, gives customers complete visibility and control of the P2P process by linking purchases, invoices and contracts. Earlier this year the company released PaletteArena 6.3. It introduces several new features to enable enhanced integration with corporate and personal payment card expenditure and improved purchase order management. Key enhancements in PaletteArena Version 6.3 include a completely new user interface to simplify key functionality and processes; further integration with PaletteConnectivityServices, replacing paper based processes with their e-invoicing function; increased spend management through PaletteExpense, enabling oversight of credit card expenditure; and improved purchase order matching enabling users to link invoices based on value as well as quantity.

Intelligent Data Capture for Netsuite – Video
 Intelligent Data Capture for Netsuite – Video 150 150 Tim Robertson
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In this video, you’ll see how Intelligent Data Capture for NetSuite integrates with ChronoScan, one of the world’s leading (and cost-effective) Intelligent OCR platforms.

ChonoScan is a powerful optical character recognition software which reduces the need for manual data entry from supplier invoices. Chronoscan speeds up processing time, automates the accounts payable process, and makes all of your accounts payable activity visible inside of NetSuite. Chronoscan is part of our solution called: Intelligent OCR for NetSuite

 

Global Adoption of Electronic Invoices – Slowly But Surely
 Global Adoption of Electronic Invoices – Slowly But Surely 150 150 Tim Robertson
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electronic invoicing airport picture

E-Invoicing Growth Worldwide Does Not Reflect Potential Savings

A new survey on e-invoicing has emerged, highlighting the possible savings, and the current state of adoption of the technology globally.

The Billentis Report states that e-billing and invoicing solutions can help achieve per-invoice savings up to 80%, and that over 40 billion invoices will be issued globally this year – an impressive figure.  However, it’s still less than 10% of the estimated 500 billion invoices sent each year worldwide, which puts the data in perspective.

Despite this, the savings possible with paperless billing are still considerable:  the report states that e-invoicing adoption by the Danish Government saves Danish taxpayers €150 million a year, and businesses €50 million.  In Italy, the government’s adoption of an e-procurement system has realised even large savings, reducing costs by over €3 billion.
Companies can accelerate adoption of e-invoicing using solutions such as Palette’s e-Invoicing Services Portal, which enables users to invite customers and partners to quickly set up and benefit from the cost- and time-savings enabled by e-invoicing, without the need for complex implementation.  This also helps accelerate cost savings and efficiency benefits.  Find out more about how we can help here.
Purchase to Pay Integration with Netsuite
 Purchase to Pay Integration with Netsuite 150 150 Tim Robertson
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netsuite purchase to pay

EchoVera’s Purchase to Pay solution, ASAP, is powered by Palette’s automation platform integrated with NetSuite, the world’s fastest growing financial management system.

Palette helps businesses large and small to streamline and automate their financial processes from purchase to payment. Palette makes life easier for more than 2,000 companies in 50 countries, as the market leader in the purchase to pay process automation.

EchoVera’s ASAP purchase to pay solution gives customers complete visibility and control of the P2P process by linking purchases, invoices and contracts. The solution is fully web-based and flexible. You choose how and where you will be working.

Give your employees the opportunity to manage invoices wherever they are – on the web, in a mobile phone or via email.
Receive and send invoices in electronic form. It’s quicker, cheaper and more environmentally friendly. Pre-defined flow and accounting posting proposals determine how an invoice progresses through the system and is posted to accounts before being processed in full.

Take control of the purchasing process
Invoices can be matched to purchase orders at the line or total level, or to contracts. Palette offers a simplified ordering process that steers users to purchase the right goods, from the right supplier, at the right price. With all purchasing statistics available, you’ll have a solid basis for negotiating prices and terms

EchoVera ASAP:

  • Gives customers complete visibility and control of the purchase-to-pay process by linking purchases, invoices, contracts, purchase orders and employee expenses
  • Modular-based, allowing customers to pick and choose only those modules that are important to them
  • Customers can choose between an on-premise installation or cloud service (SaaS)
  • Seamless integration with NetSuite

Intelligent OCR for Netsuite:

  • Processes invoices directly from email – eliminating the need to print
  • Scans paper invoices, capturing relevant invoice fields
  • Gets high marks for ease of use and an intuitive interface
  • 95% accuracy rate for paper, 100% accuracy rate for electronic formats
  • Seamless integration with NetSuite
  • Most affordable OCR on the market today

More information about Purchase to Pay for Netsuite

More information about Intelligent OCR for Netsuite

 

Palette Purchase to Pay System Has 25% Increase in Sales for 2015
 Palette Purchase to Pay System Has 25% Increase in Sales for 2015 150 150 Tim Robertson
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Purchase-to-Pay-Graphic

Purchase To Pay Automation Firm – Palette – Enjoys Increased Sales

Palette Software, the accounts payable automation and purchase to pay software company, has seen strong growth in the first half of 2015 with a 25% increase in sales during the first six months of the year, building on growth of 20% in 2014.

From the Palette company blog that discusses where the growth is coming from, and the nature of commitments to date:

The success follows on from the release of PaletteArena 6.3, the latest version of the company’s core solution suite, earlier this year and Palette’s expansion in several territories including Finland, Denmark, USA, Canada, Australia, Africa and Asia, through the development of partner agreements and subsidiary organisations.

Palette’s CEO, Lars Ola Petters, commented: “In the past 18 months we have seen growing interest in our solutions as more and more businesses realise the benefits, and return on investment, that e-invoicing and automated payments deliver. Palettes e-invoicing has grown 55% over the last 12 month and as we have grown internationally we have maintained our close customer focus, ensuring we continue to deliver market leading solutions and customer service.”

In the first six months of 2015 the Purchase to Pay automation company has picked up clients across several industries, including Clas Ohlson, Fläkt Woods, Autolink and Universal Robots, Flügger, a major airplane manufacturer. EchoVera, the master distributor of Palette in Canada, has signed ClubLink Corporation, a golf course owner which offers its members access to some of Canada’s top golf courses.

EchoVera has also introduced PaletteArena to the Boston Globe, the Toronto Star, and Canadian North, as companies across North America are realizing the value of Purchase to Pay automation solutions. Solutions include intelligent OCR scanning, PaletteInvoice, CloudTrade, and connectors to ERP systems such as NetSuite and Microsoft Dynamics. More announcements will be forthcoming from the Canadian operation.

More on the Palette blog here.

CloudTrade Joins Forces with Palette for E-invoicing Solution
 CloudTrade Joins Forces with Palette for E-invoicing Solution 150 150 Tim Robertson
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Screen Shot 2015-06-04 at 12.35.26 PM
Palette Group have become CloudTrade’s latest partner in a move that will strengthen Palette’s position as a market leader of AP automation and P2P payment software.

CloudTrade’s patented e-invoicing technology will enable Palette to offer customers a paper-free alternative, meeting a growing demand for high adoption and fast delivery. By further expanding their existing product offering, Palette has ensured that they remain innovative and lead the development of increasingly flexible solutions. With CloudTrade’s supplier adoption rate averaging an impressive 90%, Palette expect to see both an increase in new business and additional revenue from current customers

Palette Group, established in 1993, has offices worldwide and a web of clients stretching throughout Europe, America, Asia and Australia. London based CloudTrade was founded in 2010 by a team with over 25 years’ experience in e-invoicing, aiming to remove all barriers to adoption and usage. This partnership marks the formalisation of a relationship spanning over 5 years, involving a network of shared end-users and channel partners.

Both CloudTrade and Palette have pre-existing ties with Converga, a leader in advanced information logistics and Echovera, who offer document automation solutions. Richard Manson, Commercial Director of CloudTrade described the latest developments; “CloudTrade has entered a period of exceptional growth, having doubled its revenue continuously for the past 3 years. This new endeavour with Palette is the latest in a series of partnerships for us and it’s great to see our technology continuously complement and enhance existing services and solutions”.

Palette have traditionally focused on a combination of OCR and EDI to support the delivery of their P2P suite of applications, which depend on e-invoice technology. However OCR involves scanning documents and converting into data, which can require constant quality control measures to ensure consistency.

CloudTrade’s solution has removed the reliance on OCR and provided a paper-free option that can accommodate any existing systems. Current economic and environmental factors have increased the desire for the removal of paper in favour of more cost-effective, cutting edge practices. Through this partnership Palette are set to widen their existing customer base and strengthen their position among the competition.

Press Contact(s):
Elesha Bentley – elesha.bentley@cloud-trade.com
Petra Hagman – petra.hagman@palettegroup.com

About CloudTrade:
CloudTrade is one of the fastest growing e-invoice and e-document networks. Electronically connecting over 100 organisations to thousands of their trading partners across numerous sectors and regions across the globe. Founded in 2010 to offer a fresh approach to e- invoicing, CloudTrade enables companies to evolve past their reliance on paper and trade electronically with their suppliers, irrespective of size or technical maturity. Possessing unique, patented technology CloudTrade can offer services not widely seen in the market, in a cost effective way. Visit www.cloudtradenetwork.com

About Palette:
Palette is a market leader in solutions for enterprise purchase-to-pay and automated processing of supplier invoices. The company’s accounts payable product suite, PaletteArena, offers the most automated approach to supplier invoice matching and straight-through-processing. This helps customers achieve significant, measurable cost savings and efficiency gains across their accounting and business operations. Palette was founded in Sweden in 1993, and has sales offices across Europe and in the US, with 2000 customers in 50 countries. Visit www.palettegroup.com

78% of CFOs Love Electronic Invoicing – Billentis Research
 78% of CFOs Love Electronic Invoicing – Billentis Research 150 150 Tim Robertson
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Billentis Research has found that 78% of CFOs love the visibility they get with electronic invoicing. See the video below for the whole story:

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