The unique characteristics of the food and drink industry, such as seasonality, perishable inventory, supplier relationships, pricing volatility, compliance, and high transaction volumes, all contribute to complexity in managing the Procure-to-Pay process. Decentralized invoices arriving from various locations, manual data entry, and invoice routing result in a high risk of errors, slowing approval cycles and strained vendor relations. Over the last decade SoftCo has worked with some of the largest organizations in the Food and Drink industry including SunnyD, apetito and Pernod Ricard. Our solutions address the unique challenges and structure, streamline, and automates the entire Food and Drink finance process from procurement to invoice automation and payment across all spend categories.
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Smart Matching, powered by AutoML Machine Learning, removes manual elements of invoice matching resulting in an industry leading 90% touchless invoice processing. Smart Coding and Smart Routing also utilize Machine Learning to automatically determine the correct routing and coding of invoices resulting in 89% faster processing of non-PO invoices compared to manual environments. Surcharge processing is automated regardless of the way in which they are presented reducing the time to process by 95%.
SoftCoP2P is truly global, handling multiple entities and multiple currencies in multiple languages. It eliminates maverick spending and delivers efficiencies, cost savings and 100% visibility & control over the entire procure to pay process. SoftCo Procure-to-Pay software boosts your key vendor relationships by providing an efficient on-boarding process and full visibility over the status of their invoices. The solution enforces and optimizes pricing agreements with your preferred vendors. It also manages the request, purchase and control of contract-based spend.
Benefits of SoftCoP2P for Food and Drink
Improved Inventory Management.
90% Straight Through Invoice Processing.
Enhanced Supplier Relationships.
Seasonal Demand Management.
Supply Chain Visibility.
89% Cost Savings.
How AI & Machine Learning is Transforming Finance Automation
“SoftCo gives us enhanced capability to meet future growth in our business.“
LOCATION
UK
REVENUE
$2.5B per annum
INVOICES PER ANNUM
25,000
Key Challenges
apetito is the UK’s leading creator and supplier of meals for the health and social care sector. As apetito was growing at a significant rate, their finance team carried a high risk of errors. They sought a solution to automate and optimize their procurement operations.
Solutions & Results
SoftCoP2P’s Pre-Approved Spend module has enabled apetito to gain complete control and visibility across their business. SoftCo’s advanced analytics allows apetito to avail of early payment discounts and eliminates late payment penalties.
80% touchless PO invoice processing.
100% control and visibility.
Pays 90% of vendors on time.
60% quicker month end close.
Key Challenges
C&C Group is the number one drinks distributor to the UK and Ireland hospitality sectors, supplying to over 35,000 pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels across the UK and Ireland and exporting its brands to over 60 countries internationally.
Solutions & Results
SoftCo automates invoice, credit note, and statement issuance to all customers in the C&C Group. Documents are sent via email or the eBilling Portal, with billing frequencies tailored to each customer’s preferences. The accounts payable team of C&C Group now have full control and visibility over the entire AP process.
80% reduction in invoice resolution times.
100% visibility over entire invoice process.
Significant time and costs have been saved.
“The fact that the solution is flexible and customizable has been crucial for us, it will allow us to achieve even greater efficiencies as we continue to grow.”
LOCATION
UK & Ireland
REVENUE
€875M per annum
INVOICES PER ANNUM
60,000
“We can now auto-match the vast majority of the 70,000 invoices that we process each year. Integration with our ERP system was seamless.“
LOCATION
11 branches across UK
REVENUE
£182M per annum
INVOICES PER ANNUM
90,000
Key Challenges
JJ Food Service, supply a range of products including frozen foods, meat and fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, packaging and cleaning products, to all food industry sectors. JJ Food Service chose SoftCoAP to replace its manual AP process, manage their growing number of vendor invoices and to speed up approval times and payments to vendors.
Solutions & Results
With SoftCoAP, JJ Food Service auto-match 80% of invoices and post them straight to the ERP system for payment, without the need for any manual intervention. Vendors are now paid much faster, ensuring excellent vendor relationships. The JJ Food Service AP team now have control and visibility over all invoices at every stage of the process.
80% STP of all PO invoices.
100% control and visibility over every invoice.
Suppliers are paid within terms.
“SoftCo’s Smart Automation Technology gives us enhanced capability to meet future growth in our business.”
How SoftCoP2P for Food and Drink works
Streamlined Vendor Management
SoftCo Vendor Management delivers the benefits of working efficiently with preferred Vendors. Purchasing is optimized, costs reduced, and administration is eliminated. The cloud-based solution ensures Vendors have full online visibility of all orders and invoices and queries and disputes are addressed immediately.
Superior Smart Coding
SoftCo non-PO invoice handling reduces processing time by up to 90%, with industry leading compliance and audit checks. SoftCo Non-PO Smart Coding intelligently identifies and learns coding patterns allowing it to automatically code invoices, saving time and eliminating error.
Agile and Efficient eProcurement
SoftCo eProcurement (electronic procurement software) ensures a quick and efficient purchasing process for all operational spend, in full compliance with your organization’s procurement policies. SoftCo eProcurement software streamlines capital, recurring and operational spend.
Accelerated Invoice Approval workflow
SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation delivers an accelerated, secure invoice approval process with configurable automated workflows. With multiple verifiers and approvers, invoices are routed for approval, automated email notifications are sent, followed by reminders. Un-actioned invoices are routed to an alternative approver, ensuring minimal process delay.
Fully Integrated Contract Compliance
SoftCo Contract Compliance closely integrates with all SoftCo P2P modules. It manages the request, purchase and control of contract-based spend within eProcurement and facilitates contract and invoice matching within AP with comprehensive reports. The solution alerts you for contract expiry or renewals. All contracts and supporting information are stored in the SoftCo Compliant Archive.
Single Payment Workflow
SoftCoPay transforms payments from a cost center to a profit center by reducing costs, earning rebates, mitigating payment risk, and optimizing payment type. Payments are streamlined into an easy to use workflow. The seamless process, from receipt of invoice to vendor payment, delivers control and transparency with straightforward reconciliation through your ERP and a fully auditable payment process.
Precise Invoice Data Capture
SoftCo Accounts Payable Automation captures all invoice data, regardless of the format received from your Vendors, using advanced Data Capture technology or via SoftCo’s outsource data capture service. Processing times are improved, and keying errors eliminated.
100% Control of Project Spend
SoftCo Pre-Approved Spend functionality enables a seamless drawdown on pre-agreed budgets and the generation of purchase orders for spend with preferred vendors, without delay. Department budgets are not exceeded and spend with your vendors is controlled.
Unrivalled Invoice Matching
The SoftCo Matching Engine uses advanced RPA technology removing all manual elements of invoice matching, delivering an error-free, efficient process for all invoice types. The SoftCo Smart Matching engine applies Machine Learning technology to even the most complicated matching scenarios, such as incomplete data, missing product codes, and FX conversions to deliver 90% match rates.
Powerful Reporting and AI Analytics
SoftCo delivers industry leading analytics to empower organizations to make informed decisions. SoftCoP2P offers both SoftCo Advanced Analytics, part of the SoftCo solution, and the ability to integrate with 3rd party analytics tools. The platform provides accurate, real-time information over AP productivity, invoice processing rates and payments performance.
SoftCo has the best matching engine with 90% touchless processing including AutoML, the new Machine Learning model. See why our Smart Matching engine leads the market.
SoftCo’s unique AutoML Machine learning automates the time-consuming and iterative tasks associated with Invoice Automation, delivering unparalleled savings for the customer, with full auditability and control.
Utilizing millions of real data from Industry, Operations, Organizations, and Suppliers, the SoftCo AutoML Machine Learning engine ‘learns’ and improves based on 250+ match ‘patterns’ and applies this automation to SoftCo Smart Matching models, including tolerance, aggregation, and confidence match criteria. SoftCo AutoML uses real-time dynamic data. Instead of relying on stale static data, the engine learns immediately every time an invoice finishes processing, constantly improving automation customized to the specific organization.
Machine Learning (ML) is a game-changer in automating both PO and Non-PO invoicing, with full transparency and auditability. Manual invoice processing can cost $16 per invoice, whereas high invoice automation, driven by AutoML reduces processing costs by over 90%. The same ML technology is applied to the coding and routing of invoices, which are optimized by AutoML based on continuous learned patterns.
The results are unrivaled, and the savings exceptional. SoftCo delivers 90% straight through processing for PO invoices and 89% faster processing of Non-PO invoices.
SoftCo SmartConnect seamlessly integrates with over 200 ERP’s
Seamless, secure and timely integration with the Finance system or ERP is a key part of any P2P or AP Automation solution. Integrating your ERP with SoftCo will expand its capabilities, making it a more powerful business tool than ever before. SoftCo SmartConnect is a secure, highly configurable cloud based platform which manages all of the data exchange between the ERP and SoftCo. SoftCo integrates seamlessly with existing ERP systems at a single point, thus offering access to real-time information and data.
SoftCo SmartConnect has seamlessly integrated with over 200 ERP’s including Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Infor, Sage and multiple industry specific and even bespoke ERP’s.
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