SoftCo for Renewable Energy
Automating the Renewable Energy Industry
Automating the Renewable Energy Industry
The Renewable Energy industry, comprising wind, solar & hydro, faces very specific challenges regarding their procure to pay process. Typically, Renewable Energy projects consist of several lifecycle stages: screening, feasibility, development, contract execution, project delivery, operation & decommissioning. These projects take place across numerous global locations, with vendors in different territories, different currencies, and a diverse set of tax jurisdictions. This complexity, when coupled with a manual P2P process, results in significant bottlenecks in accounts payable and decelerated cycle times leading to poor vendor relations and stalled projects. Considering a 4MW wind turbine generates the equivalent of $700k in power per annum, a project being delayed, or an entire turbine farm off-line, has very significant financial implications.
SoftCoP2P for Renewable Energy accelerates, manages, and controls the costs of each lifecycle stage from screening through to decommissioning of the sites. With SoftCoP2P’s Pre-Approved Spend module, Renewable Energy companies establish a unique entity per site with a pre-approved budget depending on its lifecycle, which can be drawn down by approved users, streamlining, accelerating and automating the entire P2P process. With 100% visibility over every entity and lifecycle stage, only pre-approved vendors are used, and costs are fully controlled. SoftCoP2P delivers unparalleled touchless automation by incorporating unique Machine Learning technology minimizing the number of supplier invoices that require manual intervention.
SoftCoP2P delivers unrivalled savings. 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. SoftCoP2P software boosts your key vendor relationships by providing an efficient onboarding 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.
“SoftCo quickly understood the issues that we were facing & were able to demonstrate they knew how to solve these issues. Costs and cycle times have decreased significantly.“
50 locations across 6 European Countries
£100m per annum
20,000
NTR plc is a renewable energy company who invest in wind energy, solar energy and battery storage across Ireland, France, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Spain and the UK.
NTR’s manual P2P process resulted in cost visibility problems, delayed vendor payments, and project cost overruns. With rapid scaling and expansion of wind and solar farms in Europe, NTR needed a solution to effectively manage, control, and gain visibility into project costs and diverse suppliers across 50+ locations.
SoftCoP2P’s Pre-Approved Spend module has enabled NTR to gain complete control and visibility over their 50+ European sites. Each site operates as its own entity within SoftCo with a dedicated budget, allowing authorized personnel to draw down against this budget for pre-approved vendors within that region.
“We chose SoftCo because of their proven expertise. They delivered the
project on time, and we are seeing significant benefits and cost savings.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
SoftCoPay transforms payments from a cost centre to a profit centre 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.
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.
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.
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.
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’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.
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.
“Procure-to-pay solutions are often a long-term commitment, but the market can be difficult to navigate. Take control during vendor product demonstrations by creating a demo script. Seeing the solutions live…. will be a major factor in the decision process.”
4 Steps to Choose Your Best-Fit Procure-to-Pay Solution. July 2022.
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