Wigan Council achieves 66% AP process efficiency savings

Profile

Sector
Public Services

No. of invoices processed
90,000+ per annum

No. of employees
4,000+

Customer since
2014

How Proactis helps

  • Supported the centralisation of the Accounts Payable (AP) function and optimised process efficiency of over 90,000 invoices per annum.
  • Automated invoice processing and established AP best practices and controls.
  • Provided an in-house invoice capture solution that allowed the Council to leverage existing Unit4 Business World functionality.

Benefits

  • Automating the AP process resulted in annual invoice processing savings of over £120,000.
  • Capturing all 90,0000 incoming invoices directly increased AP process efficiencies by 66%.
  • Increasing the level of control and transparency of invoice processing delivered greater internal controls.
We were upgrading our Unit4 Business World ERP system and centralising our Accounts Payable function with the aim of automating our Purchase-to-Pay process, which was drawn out and dominated by paper and inefficient manual methods. The Proactis solution integrated well with our Unit4 Business World system to deliver efficiency savings of over 66%.

Strategic Finance Manager, Wigan Council
 
 

Background

Wigan Council is a local authority serving approximately 318,000 residents in the North West of England.

With over 4,000 employees and 90,000 invoices processed per annum, the Council was looking for opportunities to further automate its financial processes, specifically around reducing costs and improving efficiency in Accounts Payable (AP). This was part of enterprise system change, inclding the upgrade of its Unit4 Business World ERP system and centralising the AP function. The ultimate objective was to automate the Procure-to-Pay (P2P) process, which was drawn out and dominated by paper and inefficient manual methods.

The Council took the opportunity to look at what further improvements could be made to the AP and P2P processes with the aim of reducing costs, increasing throughput and agility, and reducing risk.
 
Wigan Council achieves 66% AP process efficiency savings
 

How Proactis helps

Proactis introduced a fully-automated paper invoice scanning and PDF import solution with intelligent data capture and query desk resolution. This in-house invoice capture solution enabled the Council to leverage existing Unit4 Business World functionality with purchase invoices being received faster, with less effort and with greater accuracy.

Paper invoices are rapidly converted and stored as electronic images to increase visibility and transparency, eliminating the source of bottlenecks and errors. This has resulted in accurate payments and adherence to business rules. Queries are also resolved quickly through dedicated, web-based query resolution functionality.
 
 

Benefits

The implementation is exceeding its objectives of AP automation with annualised invoice processing savings of over £120,000. Increasing the level of control and transparency of invoice processing throughout the organisation has also delivered compliance that was not previously possible with a decentralised process.

Capturing all 90,000 incoming invoices directly into the system to support ‘minimal manual effort’ has dramatically reduced the complexity and cost of the Accounts Payable operation, increasing AP process efficiencies by 66%.
 
Let our experts help you with your unique requirements.