Victoria University were a pioneer organisation in automating supplier invoice processing by adopting Xcellerate IT’s document capture solution. We met with Michael Lapolla, Manager Financial System, who was Project Manager in 2007, to check how things have changed in the Accounts Payable (AP) Department over the last 4 years.
In 2007, Victoria University started looking for a new business solution to increase efficiencies in their financial department. After a comprehensive review of the potential solutions available in the market, they decided to adopt the Xcellerate IT’s account payable (AP) automation solution integrated with their finance system, TechnologyOne Financials.
Victoria University went live with the Xcellerate IT’s AP automation solution in October 2007, and in the last four years has been a regular reference site for Xcellerate IT. The AP Automation solution adopted by Victoria University is the Kofax Capture platform designed for AP processing integrated with TechnologyOne Financials. The invoices are scanned in a centralised environment, processed through the recognition module and validated by AP personnel for exceptions. The validated information is then passed to the Release Module where it is uploaded along with the electronic document images (available at a mouse click) to TechnologyOne Financials.
What challenges were you experiencing in the Accounts Payable department?
“We process over 60,000 supplier invoices per year in a centralised environment for all the 11 local campuses and international sites. Our finance system, TechnologyOne Financials, was very efficient but we still faced one major bottleneck; getting the information from the incoming invoices into the system. Our invoice processing procedure was quite time consuming and prone to human error due to the manual input of data. This was affecting the response time to answer all internal and external queries to the AP department”.
What were Victoria University’s main goals when you looked at Accounts Payable Automation?
“As a leading higher education organisation, we were looking for a solution which could enable us to rationalise accounting processes by reducing the required man hours to process invoices as well as to improve efficiencies and reducing time to respond to queries. We wanted to leverage on our existing IT investment with TechnologyOne Financials, therefore the tight integrate with our finance system was a key requirement”.
Did you consider any other competitive product?
“Yes, we did. Due to the total amount of the investment, our procurement policy required us to investigate other solutions. We had meetings with 3 other vendors but selected Xcellerate IT due to their deep knowledge of our finance system and the unique accounting procedures of a higher education organisation”.
How was working together with Xcellerate IT deploying the solution?
“Out of all IT and finance projects, the Xcellerate IT solution was the easiest solution to implement. We were all clear on the business rules at hand and the whole solution was delivered within a 6 week turnaround. The key component to the success of the project was that we had key subject matter experts on the project together and complimented with an experienced senior consultant from Xcellerate”.
What are the main benefits provided by the solutions?
“The solution contributed to rationalise AP processes and allow refocusing of roles on more valuable tasks, such as compliance, rather than data entry. Automatic data recognition has reduced the man hours spent to process invoices, and with invoice images available from the financials, response to customer queries is greatly enhanced.
It has been, and still is, an ongoing process as the platform was also further developed by combination with the Financials workflow to streamline the authorisation process and the Xcellerate IT Email Xtractor module to automate invoices received by email”.
What was the ROI and what are the next steps?
"Our manual data entry process has been reduced by a minimum of 70%. Since we went live in 2007, the most important benefit of the Xcellerate IT’s solution is that the accounts payable department has gained better control of our incoming supplier invoices, and we now have a more efficient process. The “Soft” savings we have gained such as compliance to audit and risk governance, reduced processing times, improved vendor relationships from on-time payments, visibility of supplier payments have made the solution cost effective since day one. It also opens the doors to other financial processes beyond AP such as payroll & HR forms".
Howard Boretsky, Managing Director from Xcellerate IT said “We are proud of our successful relationship with Victoria University. It is an ongoing partnership, and we’re glad we have assisted a leading organisation like Victoria University, in achieving best practice in accounts payable”.
About Xcellerate IT
With 14 years of experience in streamlining business processes, Xcellerate IT is a leading provider of business process automation solutions. Xcellerate IT’s enterprise capture and work management solutions seamlessly integrates with major business applications, empowering organisations to increase productivity and organisational effectiveness by decreasing manual processes.
Xcellerate IT’s solutions are widely used across multiple industries in manufacturing, finance, local and state government, healthcare and a wide range of companies that require the capture of critical information from paper, electronic documents and forms.