Menzis reaches a higher level with its Purchase-to-Pay process with Proactis

Executive overview

Profile

Sector
Insurance (Health)

Number of employees
Approximately 1,700

Customer since
2007

Objectives

  • More control over spend through pre-approval in the ordering process, and full understanding of obligations.
  • A uniform and transparent Purchase-to-Pay process for all non-care-related procurement.
  • Better control of how much is being ordered, from which supplier, and under what conditions.

How Proactis helped

  • All contracts are now in one place, with notifications when contracts expire.
  • Company-wide procurement and invoice processing is now automated and integrated with a single, complete platform for contract and supplier management, ordering (including hiring external staff) and invoice processing.
  • Access to valuable management information with clear dashboards.

Benefits

  • Number of invoices to process reduced from 20,000 invoices in 2009 to 8,000.
  • Active suppliers reduced from 2,800 to 1,600.
  • Invoice processing now only requires 1.5 FTE.
View PDF

Profile

The origins of Health insurance company Menzis dates back to 1836 when a group of Arnhem doctors, pharmacists and dentists took the progressive initiative to set up a health insurance fund: The Society of Precaution. This eventually became Menzis, which now employs more than 1,00 people.
 
Today, the company is looking for smart answers to current challenges. "Together with customers, municipalities, healthcare providers, patient associations and other partners, we are working hard for affordable and accessible care", says Vollaers-Schepers, Purchasing Manager at Menzis. "Extra effort is provided in the five regions where most of our insured people live." The company has two section: Menzis and Anderzorg."We offer basic insurance and supplementary insurance throughout the Netherlands." Menzis does this for 2.3 million customers.

Objectives

In 2007, before Janneke Vollaers-Schepers joined, Menzis had already purchased Proactis' Contract Management solution. "The reason for this was the desire to store existing contracts in a central place. This means that you can also set up notifications when contracts expire.

For example, you don't want a lease to continue because the deadline has expired," continued Vollaers-Schepers. "When I came to Menzis, we, as a Purchasing department, were far from controlling all purchasing flows. The first thing I have done is map all the purchasing from the accounting system. Building up the Purchasing department also brought the need to get the ordering and invoice process under control, to be able to control how much is ordered, from which supplier, and under what conditions from the contracts. In addition, we wanted smooth processing of the corresponding invoice through an approval process."

How Proactis helped

Menzis started working on this in 2012. The Purchasing department was extended and procurement was centralized. "Until then, we had a lot of people ordering through it. They picked up the phone and called their own suppliers. This was undesirable, because we often had no savings advantages, no view of what was being purchased and the billing process was often very inefficient." The Purchasing and Finance departments put their heads together and worked on what the Purchase-to-Pay process should look like. "We did see that implementation of Proactis would positively impact the entire organization. So, we had to bring people on board to resolve initial resistance. "Each buyer had to pre-record the order application in the system so that it could be approved." The benefits of this are later in the process, as there is an invoice that can then be matched with the purchase order (PO). “So we had to be clear, for example, in consulting with the core user groups and managers throughout the process."

Also, new suppliers can only be introduced to the system with the approval of Purchasing. "We discuss this in consultation with users. Can we bundle suppliers? Do we need other suppliers? That kind of thing." If approved purchase orders match with invoices, they can automatically pass through for payment. Purchasing and Finance therefore have an overview of all non-care-related purchasing. "With the new method, we have access to valuable management information that we make fully visible with dashboards. This is based on quarterly reports and key performance indicators that we have agreed. In principle, we do not accept it if a purchase order is missing from an invoice. In some cases, you can't prevent that, but if there's no PO, we start talking to the business."

Benefits

The numbers speak for themselves. From 20,000 invoices in 2009, the company now has just over 8,000. The number of suppliers has also been reduced from 2,800 to 1,600. The percentage of orders that do not have a PO is very low, at eight percent. Previously, 6 FTEs were working on invoice processing. This is now only 1.5 FTEs. More than 95 percent of the spend falls within contracts with pre-selected deliveries that are centrally committed. "I am proud of what we have achieved in this area, together with Finance, and with Proactis", says Vollaers-Schepers.

Additionally, the hiring of flexible hour workers is also taken care of through the Proactis platform. "These are pre-approved in a contract by the budget holder within Menzis and the supplier. Temporary workers themselves electronically fill in their hours and expenses, which are then approved by a manager. Because this process is completely automatic, this saves a lot of administrative work. Based on approved time sheets, we send an invoice to the supplier ourselves. After this, and after approval, the invoice can automatically enter the payment process. We apply and encourage the principle of self-billing."  

Vollaers-Schepers concluded, "We have actually grown together with Proactis over the years into a more professional ordering and invoicing process. Nevertheless, optimization and assurance of the purchase to pay process requires continuous attention. You have to stay on top of it."
Deliver bottom-line value to your business by choosing spend management solutions without unnecessary costs and complexity:

Contact us
X