Vendor Invoice Management – Cut Costs!

SAP customers can cut their accounts payable (AP) costs by implementing Vendor Invoice Management, an add-on solution from OpenText. The OpenText Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) solution is tightly integrated with the SAP® ERP and it largely automates the process of receiving, managing and monitoring invoices for AP personnel and vendors alike.

As experts in implementing VIM particularly for manufacturing firms, Infospire substantially reduces project risks and speeds implementation.

One of our clients hired us to improve their invoice processing through implementing VIM and integrating their supplier portal (based on Taulia) and their tax application (based on Vertex). As a high tech manufacturer, they also had several unique requirements including uncommon AP transactions such as liquidation and down-payments.

We started work with them in August of 2019 and they went live in January, 2020 (they chose to delay deployment to after year end). We recently caught up with the project team to learn from them what outcomes they’ve achieved and given the passage of time, what they liked the best about working with Infospire.

Outcomes Achieved

From an outcomes perspective, they quickly highlighted two key outcomes.

First, that their processing time for invoices had dropped year over year. In 2019, their average invoice processing time ranged from 15-18 days, depending up on the invoice type (services invoices, for example, typically have a higher processing time). In 2020 their average processing time has dropped to below 10 days, including service invoices.

Second, their CFO wanted to increase the dollar value of early pay discounts realized. Comparing the same 8-month period from 2019 with 2020, they had achieved a 40% increase in the dollar value of early pay discounts.

Another outcome that was mentioned, though not stressed, was a noted decrease in supplier queries (e.g. “when will I get paid”). They believe that the decrease in those calls to AP could be attributed to increase visibility for suppliers – with the implementation of VIM and our integration with Taulia, suppliers have increased visibility as to where in the process their invoices currently rest – and, as you might guess, generally speaking delays rest with buyers and approvers, not with AP.

There you have it: substantial reduction in processing time (down to 10 days) and an increase in early pay discounts (40%). Your results will vary, but it is fair to expect improvements in both areas for most businesses.

The Infospire Project Team

As part of our interview, they shared some recollections from the project. First was that the Infospire team knew what they were doing, were effective in communicating (e.g. weekly updates, project plan, outstanding issues to resolve, etc.), and were pleasant in collaborating. Second, our client was pleased that all of their unique requirements were addressed effectively including liquidation and down payment transactions. And third, their suppliers were not affected by the deployment – from their perspective, none of their work changed but they have noted that they have substantially improved visibility to their invoices – a plus from their perspective.

More information

If you’d like a presentation on our project approach or have specific questions, please email us at info@infospire.net.