The ReadSoft effect on: Brown Shipley,
Process: Accounts payable automation 
Segment: Banking and Finance
Country: United Kingdom

ReadSoft’s enterprise-level solution is integrated by partner Mitral into leading investment company’s existing Sun Accounts system.

Background

Based at Founders Court in the City of London since 1863 and established in business in 1810, Brown Shipley provides banking, investment management, pensions and associated advisory services for private, institutional and corporate clients.

Dedicated and skilful relationship teams offer a highly personal service in recognition of the unique financial requirements and goals of each of its clients - whether individuals or organisations. Given its commitment to quality it is not surprising that Brown Shipley applies the same care to its internal systems.

As Brown Shipley now operates out of six regional offices as well as its head office, it became apparent that there was a need to focus on improving the efficiency of its internal invoice processing system.

Problem

Traditional manual processing of invoices is expensive, delays are not unusual and sometimes invoices can be mislaid. Brown Shipley identified the difficulty in tracking invoices as one key problem. The processing of invoices is done in the company’s Accounts Department based in London.

However, if not already approved, invoices had to be physically sent to the company’s Regional Offices for approval and then back to London. In most cases, suppliers sent their invoices direct to the Regional Offices to be sent onwards to London. Consequently, the Accounts Department had little idea of what was outstanding.

It was decided Brown Shipley needed a more up-to-date approach and that a workflow solution, moving the paper electronically, would be the answer.

Solution

Having investigated the options available Brown Shipley decided to work with Mitral Systems, in conjunction with ReadSoft, because of Mitral’s ability to provide a complete solution - from consultancy services to delivery of ReadSoft’s solution for automated invoice processing solution. The solution would be fully integrated with Brown Shipley’s existing accounting system (Sun Accounts).

Mitral’s first steps were to provide the consulting and analysis to specify the solution and to model the required business rules. The current manual system was surveyed and the customer’s requirements ascertained. The major aims of the workflow project were to improve the speed of capture of invoice data, and to improve the routing of invoices at the approval stages. The solution had to scale across many sites and provide an expandable framework for future developments as new workflow and document processing requirements were identified. London was the first site to be brought online with the other sites following once the London installation had been successfully rolled out.

Components

The key components of the combined solution included:

System

Regardless of type or status, the invoices received by Brown Shipley are first scanned into the system. The data from structured invoices, without supporting documentation, can be captured using ReadSoft's INVOICES software. As many invoices as possible are captured in this way.

ReadSoft’s unique software reads the Supplier Name, Invoice Number, Invoice Date and Values (Net, Gross, VAT) from the invoice with minimal user input. The remaining invoices, unstructured or with many pages of supporting documentation, are captured using the M-Store Scan program. For these invoices the index data, as above, has to be keyed in rather than read automatically, but this does allow all of the supporting documentation to be scanned at the same time.

Once all the invoices have been captured they are securely stored in the M-Store Document Storage System, to meet seven years archive rules, and a workflow job is created. The invoices are then loaded into Brown Shipley’s accounts system and all put on hold, pending the next workflow steps. From this point on all steps are paperless and audited.

James Ward, Brown Shipley’s Financial Accounting Manager, confirmed that the workflow system has achieved its major, original objective: “It has added control to our purchase invoice processing,” he said. “Other benefits have been gained through the Mitral/ReadSoft solution - most notably it has provided a fast drill-down capability for expenses reporting and fast access to archive records”.

How the ReadSoft/Mitral solution works

For invoice processing, four queues were created, with invoices moving through them according to the various rules specified by Brown Shipley. Individuals only see the queue for which they are responsible. Additional automatic rules can be applied - for example, if an invoice is above a value threshold two signatories would be required.

All invoices eventually arriving in the payments queue have been authorised. The status of the invoice can be changed from “on hold” to “for payment” and the invoice exits from the workflow system.

If however an invoice has been rejected for payment it is routed into a separate queue. The accounts department will send a copy invoice and note back to the supplier, and update workflow to indicate that this has been done. All completed invoices (paid or rejected) exit from the queues and a transaction record is stored. Retrieval of documents and the associated audit trail is allowed even after transactions have been completed.

Nominal Ledger coding for each invoice is made as automatic as possible with the operator confirming the information. This can be changed later should the approver not agree with the coding. Audit trails of who changed what and when are always available.

As a new invoice joins their queue the authoriser can be sent a message to warn him/her that a new item awaits approval. The invoices stay in the queue awaiting action from either an individual or group of people responsible for the queue. An image of the invoice and any supporting documentation is presented to the authoriser. Any notes that have been added are available with an audit of the invoice processing to date. Using this information the invoice is either approved for payment or rejected, moving to the next queue stage.

One of the big advantages of an electronic system is that related documents are available at any time to check all he documents for the transaction. The Purchase Order and Delivery Note can be viewed easily and any anomalies quickly resolved.

One of the key requirements of the system was that invoices should be easily traceable within the system. An invoice search component was provided to allow searching across all queues by Supplier Code, Invoice Number or Invoice Date (or any combination). The list of matching invoices will show the current location and the current owner of the invoices. Depending on access levels the enquirer can launch invoice processing if necessary.

Reports showing how long each invoice has been in every queue provide useful management information.