Presentation done at IQPC Asia Pacific (Sentosa Island, Singapore) in 2010 on our Procure to Pay journey.

1. Chaos to Control Our journey from a chaotic, paper based process. Jeff Monico General Manager Information Systems

3. THE PROBLEMS WE FACED

4. OUR SEARCH FOR A SOLUTION

5. HOW WE DEPLOYED

6. THE UNANTICIPATED BENEFITS

7. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT OVER THE YEARS

9. Founded in 1974 by Greg Poche. Greg’s influence and core guiding principles are very much part of the business ethos today.

10. December 2003 saw Australia Post and Qantas form a joint venture to acquire Star Track Express from its founder.

11. After over 35 years of strong growth, Star Track Express is the most technologically advanced and successful express freight company in Australia

12. 3,500+ Employees, 2,400 + Vehicles (Vans, Trucks, Prime Movers, Trailers, Forklifts)

15. Invoices being lost and delayed caused friction between suppliers, branch employees and Payables.

16. Lack of compliance with process and policies, Purchase Orders often written up after the invoice was received. Hard to be sure who had approved.

17. Poor coding of invoices and subsequent errors in Financial Reports.

18. Payments made mainly by cheque (90%). More delays in paying vendors.

19. Invoices filed sometime after payment. Time consuming process. Hard to find, some lost and misplaced. Ran out of storage space.

20. Payables needed to be kept open for 2 weeks after month end, causing Financial Reports to be distributed 1 week before then next month started.

22. We aggressively moved payments from cheques to EFT (went from 90% Cheques to 90% EFT). This reduced the workload on Payables and increased the speed of payment to Vendors.

23. We aggressively moved away from printing and posting remittances (went from 100% mailed, to 10% mailed, 40% emailed and 50% faxed). Again this reduced workload on Payables and made our Vendors life a little easier.Hint – Get your ‘House in Order’ before moving forward. Remove the noise before the project starts !

25. For us this was imaging, workflow, strong approval control, ability to deploy to hundreds of users economically, and an intuitive and user friendly UI.

26. Inventory integration, project costing, budgetary control were not important.

27. We then looked at market at found there was not much out there. The major ERP providers were very expensive, had UI which was not user friendly and did not have great imaging capabilities.

28. We were struggling to find something which ticked all the boxes, but then e-Flow (now Basware) popped out of nowhere.Hint – don’t think you need to purchase the EPP/P2P solution from your ERP provider. They do not need to be one and the same.

29. Deployment Timetable Hint: Pilots prove capability better then anything else. If a pilot can be built quickly and has a high percentage then subsequent development should be relatively pain free. P2P is a process which should lend well to quick Pilots as it should be a matter of configuration, not major development.

31. Stress that it isn’t really a big change (memo to email analogy).

32. Hands on training is great if you can afford the time.

33. Put in place monitoring very early to see where problems are (both in AP and users) – and make it visible.

34. Put in SLA’s around the key things like ‘receive to scan’ and ‘send to users’.

35. Pick the easy wins first (i.e. Invoice Processing for us). Don’t let the hard stuff slow you down.

37. There are new tasks and job functions involved with P2P solutions, for example scanning. Don't try and simply put staff who used to do one function into a new one. Putting a person who was an AP Clerk into a scanning role may not work - get the right people for the right role. This may mean new people.

39. Scanned within 24 hours.

40. Coded, matched and work-flowed within another 24 hours.

41. Payables then monitor the checking and approving process, mainly by exception.

42. Invoices checked and ultimately approved electronically in Branches.

43. Approved Invoices then have final check by Accountants.

44. Loaded in Financial System (DynamicsGP) and then paid when due.

45. Payment status updates in Basware.

46. Instant retrieval of invoices by end users through a multitude of channels.

48. Scanned within 24 hours.

49. Coded, matched and work-flowed within another 24 hours.

50. Payables then monitor the checking and approving process, mainly by exception.

51. Invoices checked and ultimately approved electronically in Branches.

52. Approved Invoices then have final check by Accountants.

53. Loaded in Financial System (DynamicsGP) and then paid when due.

54. Payment status updates in Basware.

55. Instant retrieval of invoices by end users through a multitude of channels.

57. Complete visibility (who has the invoice) and control.

58. Trust in who had Approved.

59. Less Paper (running out of space).

60. Less stress (AP, Vendors, Users).

61. Reduction of headcount (gone from 8 FTE for < 100k Invoices to 7 FTE with >120k Invoices, plus have added other valuable tasks).

62. Enhanced reputation to the business (Finance) and our Vendors.

63. A platform to build a high performing AP team.Hint: be prepared to have high turnover in AP, but this could be a good thing ! We had 100% turnover in the first few years, but now have almost zero turnover and a very happy team.

65. Automation of final checking, greater checking with less time.

66. Easily moved underlying financial systems.

67. Personal archives, has increased visibility and reduced paper.

72. Supplier Portal – Invoice Tracking.

73. Supplier Portal – Catalogues.

74. Supplier Portal - Electronic Invoices

75. Automation to remove Clerk coding and distribution tasks.

77. Challenge, if you haven't gone down this path - why not ?? There are great, mature solutions out there which can be deployed relatively risk free with a quick ROI. Start a pilot as soon as you can, you won't regret it.

79. Questions..... Q jeff.monico@startrackexpress.com.au