Department store signs multi-year agreement for hybrid single solution to accept paper, PDF and XML purchase invoices

Department store signs multi-year agreement for hybrid single solution to accept paper, PDF and XML purchase invoices

UK department store retailer Beales almost tripled its trading base with the acquisition of the Anglia Co-op’s 19 Westgate department stores late in 2011.

To support this growth, Beales recently entered into a multi-year agreement with K3 Retail and strategic partner Intelligent Capture for a new e-invoicing system, which has now been successfully implemented and integrated with its existing K3 Retail Microsoft Dynamics NAV platform.

Streamlining back office

With the growth of the organisation has come an increase in product lines and purchase invoices into the head office function in Bournemouth. The e-invoicing system will enable Beales to drive down back-office costs and allow the accounts payable team to operate with greater operational efficiency.

Paper invoices are still received and scanned by the accounts payable team. Once scanned, the invoice images are uploaded to the Intelligent Capture managed service, where the relevant data is extracted and validated for accuracy. Clean, validated data is then passed to the Microsoft Dynamics NAV system. PDF invoices are received via email from suppliers and directly imported into the solution, with XML also being processed through the single solution, in all instances the same error checking and resolution process takes place, irrespective of invoice type.

Enabling process efficiency

The system will reduce the amount of manual keying for accounts payable staff, as well as resolving and driving out invoice exceptions. This, in turn, will allow them to focus time on more business-critical tasks and instant access to purchase invoices will help to drive operational efficiency right across the organisation. It will also provide the backbone to further process automation across Beales, as its scalability will enable further automation within other departments.

“We identified e-Invoicing as being pivotal to driving further back office process efficiency,” said Subhash Sreedharan, IT director at Beales. “We wanted a single solution to address all invoice formats, while also being scalable to drive further process efficiency across the organisation, the Intelligent Capture solution delivered on both fronts.”

He added: “The retail pedigree of Intelligent Capture and the partnership they have with K3 Retail made them the obvious choice and I am delighted to say that we have seen the benefits of this working relationship in our delivery.”