Challenge

SunnyD’s spreadsheet and email-based accounts payable process was becoming unsustainable. With six facilities throughout the USA, the company needed to find a better way to manage the workflow around invoice processing and approval for over 65,000 vendor invoices a year. It was not possible to manually match invoices with purchase orders, and the complexity of the vendor invoice meant that there were errors in coding, matching, and approval. The team lacked visibility over the financial workflow and was wasting valuable time on routine accounting tasks.

Solution

With SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation, SunnyD now capture invoices electronically on receipt and pre-populate fields utilizing intelligent character recognition. This significantly reduces the time and improves the accuracy of invoice registration and validation. A 3-way auto-match of each invoice against a purchase order and a goods receipt note saves hundreds of hours of employee time and facilitates straight-through processing of invoices. Invoices that cannot be auto-matched are rerouted via dedicated workflows for exception handling. Approvers receive an email prompting them to review the invoice and all communications and comments with approvers are tracked and managed seamlessly. The solution is fully integrated with the Microsoft Dynamics ERP system.

Results

SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation has given SunnyD control over its entire accounts payable process, improving visibility and saving hundreds of hours in invoice approval times. Auto-match ensures over 50% straight-through processing of invoices. The solution enables SunnyD’s finance personnel to calculate the value of in-process invoices, supporting better cash flow management. Month-end close and accruals are completed faster, saving each employee a day a month, every month.