The Next Step in Financial Management and Automation Neil Robertson CEO Compleat Software Limited

The Next Step in

Financial Management and

Automation

Neil Robertson CEO

Compleat Software Limited

A lifetime of learning

• 1976 Trainee AP clerk – Industrial Acoustics

• 1979 British Olivetti

• 1983 Team Systems Group

• 1989 Misys Plc

• 1995 Great Plains (MS Dynamics GP)

• 2008 Compleat

• Today 5 years and £3m invested to date

• Tomorrow It is already here

Quick Survey

• Purchase order / purchase invoice approval process– Manual

– Email / Excel or equivalent

– Full automated integrated into Sage

• Percentage of invoices received that have an official Purchase Order– Less that 20%

– Less than 50%

– Less than 75%

Purchase to Pay Automation

• So why is this function still predominately manual?– Current process works OK (suppliers get paid)

– Budget Holder’s responsible for own spend (not a finance problem)

– Budget Holders will never co-operate

– Too many people, so too hard to implement

– The cost of automation is not justifiable

– It is not finance department’s responsibility

– Too many other priorities

– Never really considered it

• Looking at the bigger picture– The B2B world is changing

– It is going to impact your business

– Many organisations have already taken the first step

The Bigger Picture

If automation was both easy and affordable….

The Bigger Picture

• What has changed?

– Focus on reducing the cost per financial transaction

• Automation of customer / supplier interaction

• Remove the paper

• Increase speed and productivity

• Increase accuracy

• Enable timely payment

– Available from a growing number of suppliers

• Growing Adoption

• It will become the default method of trading

• Simply huge productivity gains

• Prices will reflect levels of automation adopted

• “Premium prices” for manual processes

RequisitionRequests to

purchase

Purchase Order

PO Document

Receipting

Goods / Services

Purchase Invoice

Capture and Approval

Sage Software

Paper / EmailVerbal Orders

The Bigger Picture

WebsiteOnline

purchasing

Sales Order Processing

PO Document

Delivery

Goods / Services

Sales Invoice Production

Timeliness & Accuracy of

Payment

Supplier ERP Software

Quality of PO

Quality Delivery

Invoice Accuracy

Budget Holders “Tool Set”

• Very good at their job– How many are trained in “procurement”

• Because they are all Procurement Managers

– Is there a standard process for

• Formal approval process of every purchase made

• Maintaining accurate budget availability

• Maintaining records of goods / services supplied

• Reconciliation of PO to PI pre-approval

• Auditable validation of reconciliation

– Simple process for Credit Note requests

• They will just pay overcharged amounts – Too Hard!

RequisitionRequests to

purchase

Purchase Order

PO Document

Receipting

Goods / Services

Purchase Invoice

Capture and Approval

Sage Software

Supplier Website

(Punch Out)

Supplier Portal

Catalogue Management

workflow workflowworkflow

The Bigger Picture

WebsiteOnline

purchasing

Sales Order Processing

PO Document

Delivery

Goods / Services

Sales Invoice Production

workflow workflow workflow

100% AccuratePayment

Supplier ERP Software

Quality of PO

Accuracy of PO

Zero Cost Processing of PO

Quality of PO

Accuracy of PO

Formal OrderWith terms

.PDF & Attachments

Auto Acknowledgement

Auto Receipting

Electronic / OCR Invoice

ZERO TOUCH

The Bigger Picture

• This is ALREADY standard best practise– All larger organisations

– Growing number of smaller organisations

• The trend of adoption will continue– Removing the need to create paper

– ERP to ERP straight through processing

– It will replace scanning and OCR methodologies

• It is founded on

– Digital Purchase Orders

– Purchase to Pay functionality

– NOT Document Management and OCR of purchase invoices

Purchase to Pay Benefits

Extending your ERP Functionality

Budget Holders Benefits

• Primary Requirements– Simple and fast Purchase Order process

– Fast and effective formal & auditable approval process

– Real time budget availability information

– Simple and fast purchase invoice approvals

– Suppliers get paid on time

• Current manual processes– Slow and time consuming

– Process often ignored (no formal PO)

– Manual budget validation

– Slow approval process

– Tedious Purchase Order v Purchase invoice reconciliation

– Looks right – gets approved for payment

Suppliers Benefits

• Formal purchase orders– Clear instructions

– Clear terms of supply and payment

– Payment date is about execution and accuracy of billing

• Prefer Customers with good P2P controls– Suppliers know PO number is essential on Sales

Invoices

– Over billing leads to delays and credit notes

– Accurate billing enables fast approvals

– Good customers always pay on time

– Good customers get preferential treatment (and pricing)

Finance Department Benefits

• Current processes– No visibility of spend until purchase invoice received

/approved and posted

– Budgets based on last month’s management accounts

– Paper intensive, slow, things get lost

– Supplier payments late

• P2P Automation– Full visibility of spend from “requisition”

– 100% automated and auditable PO approval processes

– Full commitment accounting

– Fully automated budget control

– 100% control over suppliers

– 100% automated Purchase Invoice approvals

Conclusions

• 95% of P2P users are NOT finance department users

– 65% are Requisitioner's

– 30% are Approvers

• Biggest beneficiaries of P2P are Budget Holders

• Finance benefits are delivered by default

• Focus on Budget Holders

– Extremely fast and simple requisition generation

– Fully automated budget and approval process

• From any connected device / email 24 x 7

– Auto reconciliation on PI capture of PO / Receipt / PI, highlights errors

– Extremely fast PI approval for those that are correct

– Automated control of Credit Note requests for those that are wrong

– Final Approval – POSTED direct to Purchase Ledger for payment

Conclusions

• Budget Holders – make their budget go further– Simple to get competitive quotes

– Consolidation of suppliers for better pricing

– Contract Management

• Review prior to termination date

• Alternative quotes

– 100% validation of purchase invoice to purchase order

• Credit notes!

• Productivity savings

• Spend Visibility and Control

Conclusions

• It is only a case of WHEN your business automates P2P– How much it costs v how much you would save

• Compleat priced to be affordable / justifiable

– How much of your resource it requires

• 50 user sites – about 2 - 3 days

– How easy it is to Use

• Make up your own mind – have a look at the break out

– How many steps you take

• Document Management for PI approval is a dead end

Compleat Overview

Compleat Purchase to Pay

• Single UI / transaction for 100% visibility– Quotation requests

– Requisitions

– Budget availability

– Approvals

– Purchase Order Generation

– Receipting

– Purchase invoice capture with auto reconciliation

– Approvals

– Accounting software posting

– Dashboards and Reporting

Compleat P2P

• Deployment Options– 100% browser application – any device 24 x 7

– Cloud and / or local perpetual license

• Pricing– To remove the cost and complexity of P2P automation

– Extremely easy to use

– Very Fast to deploy

– Self-sufficiency post live

– Starts at £15 per user per month – reducing as user count increases

• Affordable and financially justifiable for all

Selection of customersHospitality Property Finance Marketing CharityEducation

Health

Thank you for your time