Warwickshire County Council uses Invoice Capture to enhance its spend control processes

Profile

Sector:
Public Services

No. of invoices:
60,000+ p.a

No. of users:
2 full-time users +
3 part-time users

Partner involvement:
Unit4

Operates in:
UK

Customer since:
January 2024

Objectives

  • Integration with Unit4 to ensure transparency and control of order and invoice processing and information.

  • Greater ‘straight through’ processing, resulting in reduced administration time required to process invoices.

  • Greater visibility of performance to focus improvement work.

  • Support further implementation of ‘No PO, No Pay’ policy.

How Proactis helped

  • Provided an automated solution for invoice processing.

  • Greater access to data to provide management reports on performance.

  • Easy integration with Unit4.

Benefits

  • Reduction in administration time required to process invoices.

  • Supports the Councils existing ‘No PO, No Pay’ policy.

  • Streamlined invoice payment process and full visibility of spending.

  • Improved communication channels with suppliers, allowing quicker resolution for queries and errors.

  • When received, any invoice which fails the No PO, No Pay criteria is automatically returned to the sender via the query desk.

Our work with Proactis and Unit4 has enabled straight-through processing of our invoices through automation of our activities. We now have complete visibility of the status of each invoice.

Don Page, Payments Team Leader, Warwickshire County Council
 

Profile

Warwickshire County Council provides a wide range of services to over half a million residents, from education and roads to social care and fire and rescue. The Council works with other public, private and voluntary organisations to make Warwickshire a better place to live and work. The Council has a long-standing relationship with Unit4, dating back to 2011 and migrated its ERP to the Unit4 Cloud in early 2024.

The Council took the opportunity to review the systems it had in place, with a focus on spend control and invoice management. Stephen Robbins, Service Manager Finance Systems and Projects at Warwickshire County Council explains. "As part of our move to the Unit4 Cloud, we identified there was an opportunity to check the suitability of our solutions."
Warwickshire County Council uses Invoice Capture to enhance its spend control processes

Objectives

It quickly became apparent that there were opportunities to review and refresh the process associated with processing invoices, including investigating improved automation. On the back of a full procurement exercise for a new system, Proactis Invoice Capture was selected to manage the invoice process.
 
“We were aware of the relationship between Proactis and Unit4, so it seemed like a natural choice,” stated Phil Mcgaffin, Exchequer Manager at the Council. “Through the procurement process, opportunities to reduce the administration time and manual processes required to process invoices became increasingly apparent to us.”
 
This engagement with Proactis and Unit4 ensured that the solution that was implemented for invoicing and invoice capture would work smoothly with Unit4 Business World. The objective was not only to improve efficiencies, but to ensure transparency and control of ordering and invoicing information.
Objectives - Greater ‘straight through’ invoice processing,

How Proactis helped

The Council selected Proactis to manage the whole invoice process.

“The implementation of Proactis was extremely smooth, with regular communication before and after go-live,” stated Don Page, Payments Team Leader at the Council.

Proactis provides a fully-automated invoice scanning and PDF import solution with intelligent data capture and query desk resolution. This integrates seamlessly with the existing Unit4 system. Bringing in PDF invoices, already scanned, checked and matched, means that they now drop straight into Unit4 with a huge amount of the checking already done. A large amount of data is also available from the system, including details of late payments, unpaid invoices, and invoices received with missing information.

A dedicated, web-based query resolution process was also deployed so that the Council can rapidly resolve any invoice non-conformance issues such as missing or incorrect supplier information. This gives a clear picture of the reasons and sources of any invoice exceptions. “Thanks to the query desk, we have clear visibility of why an invoice isn’t on the system,” added Alexandra Clifford, Project Accountant. “Invoice discrepancies are quickly and easily managed.”
Proactis provided an automated solution for invoice processing.

Benefits

Proactis is now used for scanning invoices, and combined with the Unit4 system, suppliers can see their invoices and where they are in the process. Suppliers can also be easily trained to submit invoices as required.

The work with Proactis and Unit4 has also enabled straight-through processing of invoices, and the Council has been able to more stringently implement their  “No PO, No Pay” policy. Don Page adds: “Because the Proactis solution is intuitive, it is very easy to use. It has been adopted very quickly, and our users are very positive about using it.”

Combining Proactis Invoice Capture with Unit4 has resulted in the automation of many AP processes. Invoice processing is streamlined and manageable for the team.

Phil Mcgaffin concluded: “Overall, Proactis has given us more visibility of our invoices, and provided the automation we wanted. The administration time required to process invoices and associated paper trail has been vastly reduced.”
Reduction in administration time required to process invoices.
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