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Plans to Expand
A few years ago, Specsavers set a target of increasing its total number of stores to 1,000 and boosting its revenue to £1bn within 5 years. It also set about turning its finance department into a world-class finance operation. In order to support this business growth without new technology, the Group would have required a significant number of additional staff.
A review highlighted that in order to achieve its targets without increasing headcount, a radical overhaul of the finance department's manual processes was required and that one of the biggest processes that needed improving related to 'procure to pay' and in particular 3rd party invoice processing. The 'procure to pay' function that existed meant that supplier invoices were authorised at each of the 860 UK and International stores as well as within the Group offices. Each store had to manually submit every invoice to the central accounts office for payment and on receipt of the invoices, the data was manually entered onto the accounting system by a full-time day team as well as a twenty five-person night shift. All paperwork was manually filed and stored on-site. |
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"Our expansion plans and goal to become a world-class finance department will undoubtedly be realised with the help of these quality systems."
Karen Dicks, Director of Finance, Specsavers |
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Making it a Reality with Version One
To streamline the 'procure-to-pay' function and provide greater efficiency across Specsavers without having to hire additional staff, Specsavers selected Version One's electronic archiving solution, DbArchive, and also its automated invoice capture software, DbCapture. This technology fulfilled Specsavers' needs, and being tightly integrated into its accounting system, electronic invoices could be directly linked to transactions and quickly and easily accessed across the business. |
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The document imaging software electronically stores images of all supplier invoices. All incoming supplier invoices are scanned-in and then electronically tagged to the appropriate record in the accounting system. They are also automatically stored in the archive to satisfy audit requirements and to enable users to view the invoices in a readable format.
The data capture system uses the latest optical character recognition (OCR) technology so that instead of having to manually input data from the invoices, it is done automatically. Once the invoice has been scanned, DbCapture automatically recognises the type of document and the supplier by its unique characteristics. DbCapture then highlights and extracts the relevant references and amounts and validates the extracted data against the relevant information held in the accounting system. The validated data is then automatically imported into the core financial system.
Both the imaged and XML invoices can be retrieved by drilling-down through the accounting system or by searching using a web-based interface with password-access. Using the web-based interface, users can quickly locate the image of the document they require as well as all related documentation by searching on a range of fields such as customer name, invoice date range and document number.
DbArchive and DbCapture will soon be automatically handling one million supplier invoices every year. |
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"In just five weeks and with the same number of staff, we have reduced the time it takes to process an invoice by up to 66%."
Karen Dicks, Director of Finance, Specsavers
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Eyeing-up the Benefits
Just 5 weeks after implementation and with 50% of the stores live, Version One's solutions are already providing Specsavers with impressive benefits. Karen Dicks, Specsavers' Director of Finance explains, "After just five weeks of being installed, we are already seeing an average of a 60% hit rate with DbCapture. This means that, on average, data from 60% of supplier invoices are being captured and processed without any further manual intervention whatsoever. This is impressive after such a short period of time. Once all stores are live with the system, it is hoped that our manual data entry effort will be reduced by up to 80%" |
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Efficiency at Specsavers has also markedly improved. Prior to using Version One's systems, a batch of invoices used to be processed in 2-3 days. Now they are turned-around within a day. "In just five weeks and with the same number of staff, we have reduced the time it takes to process an invoice by up to 66%", says Dicks. "This is a remarkable achievement, which is directly due to replacing inefficient, paper-pushing processes with the latest automated technologies." |
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Dicks adds, "Once these latest technology solutions enabling the processing of supplier invoices have been in place for some time, it is hoped, and there are already positive indications, that we will make dramatic savings in storage and data entry costs. This will free up thousands of feet of storage space and enable our staff to focus on more value adding activities. With these new systems in place, we will be able to increase customer satisfaction, improve our margins as well as avoiding the need to employ a significant number of new staff."
Focusing on the Future
Although Specsavers is still in the early stages of using Version One's software, the benefits already recognised are making a huge impact on the company's financial processes. Dicks comments, "We are delighted with the payback Version One's software has provided us with so early on. Our expansion plans and goal to become a world-class finance department will undoubtedly be realised with the help of these quality systems, and I look forward to seeing how they impact Specsavers' procedures and bottom line once all 600 UK stores are live."
Read more about invoice processing & purchase invoice automation.
1 - Download our Free White Paper:
Reduce Your Costs with
Purchase Invoice Automation
2 - Download our Specsavers Case Study:
Specsavers Automates Invoice Processing to Boost Productivity PDF
3 - Download the PIA Product Flyer
Purchase Invoice Automation Product Flyer
4 - Contact Us
Tell us your contact details and we'll get straight back to you
5 - Register for one of Version One's Free Seminars
Version One holds regular seminars at various locations across the UK |
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