How can your business overcome paper in an efficient electronic world?

Like most organisations you have an accounting or ERP system and you may believe that you have a computerised business. However, have you automated the whole finance process? You’re probably not alone in having the “core” ledgers and books without addressing pockets of manual process, especially in relation to your suppliers.

“Purchase to pay” is one key area which is more often than not left incomplete and largely manual; consequently the interaction with a business’ suppliers may not be in great shape. Failure to manage this properly results in cash flow problems and at worst money spent that cannot be recovered.

Automating the purchase to payment flow may reap disproportionate rewards. More often than not this hinges around minimising the volumes of paper documents and streamlining how they are handled during the flow. Pragmatic solutions may mean the difference between success and failure. Invu's new whitepaper "Purchase to Payment Automation – Overcoming paper in an efficient electronic world" provides guidance on negating the impact of paper and utilising the content in an otherwise electronic world.

Download your copy http://www.invu.net/info/whitepapers.aspx

Invu Document Management transforms KMI Water’s payment processes

Invu Document Management has enabled KMI Water to transform 80,000 paper invoices received annually to digital format. All in-bound paper has been eliminated from operational processes and together with integration with COINS financial software this has paved the way for greatly streamlined payment processes. 95% of all transactions are now processed within agreed payment terms. The company also has the information transparency required to support partnerships with both its key clients and the rest of its supply chain including sub-contractors.
As a result of its investment, KMI has transformed its payment processes and finance staff are freed up to concentrate on higher value jobs, providing a return on investment within 18 months.

Stuart Murray, Finance Director explained. “Anyone from procurement to finance can see the information in Invu and this ensures speedy resolution of standard issues such as wrong delivery charge or product rate.”

Now instead of handling repeated calls from suppliers about payments, finance staff can concentrate on invoice checking and validation. Furthermore, the company has been able to increase its turnover – and invoice volumes – without adding staff.

Read the full success story http://www.invu.net/case-studies.aspx

KMI Water implemented its Invu software with Invu reseller The Content Group. Contact Invu for more details.

Issue 8 of Invu's customer magazine InsideVu now available

As always InsideVu contains key information to help you use Invu more effectively in your business.

In this edition you can find out more about our new modules for V6.4 as well as further information on Invu Content Automation. Our Technical Support Team are also on hand with their round up of hints and tips

Download your copy here
http://www.invu.net/already-a-customer/customer-magazine-insidevu.aspx

and you can sign up to receive the next issue on the same page.

BPM - Will it deliver benefits for your business or deny you a peaceful sleep?

According to Gartner, “By 2014, Business Process Management will clearly deliver benefits to those who have the competencies, and deny a peaceful sleep to those who do not". This may be a little apocalyptic but it may have implications for smaller organisations than the typical enterprise level targets of these big beast systems. Full scale major BPM is often a significant investment which can transform working practices & MI. However, the price barriers can be daunting and many businesses may look at a BPM solution as being for the corporates only.

Where Invu comes in is a pragmatic solution using automation and integration rather than a monolithic software implementation. Invu doesn’t pretend to be a BPM solution – we don’t deliver full MI for example. However, some of the same issues solved by a true BPM implementation are increasingly covered off by Invu’s solutions for mid-sized organisations

For the business faced with a partial solution (typically an ERP solution) there are often untouched processes which require management and automation. Paper invoices is a good example, proofs of delivery another. A wholesale major investment using a full BPM proposition may be the answer but this may be an expensive, disruptive play and it’s certainly not to be undertaken lightly. In many cases this may involve implementation of an EDI solution (electronic data interchange) so it’s worth asking the question – would your suppliers be affected too? If so, does this mean implementation of co-operating systems there too and will they be willing to play ball to optimise the offering between both parties?

Sometimes a low impact solution may be best – deal with the hand you’ve got and optimise it. Scanning, intelligent data extraction, workflows and integration with existing ERP systems may fundamentally streamline the way you work. It’s a classic case of the Pareto principle (i.e. the 80:20 rule). Sure, you won’t have the shiniest option available but it breaks down many of the significant practical day-to-day problems at a fraction of the cost and short term operational upheaval. Gartner is right – transforming the way you work to optimise efficiency is an essential route to growth, if not survival in some cases. We’d just say that for the non-corporate you can knock over some of the key problems more simply.

Could saving costs also save lives...?

It’s not just large corporates that need document management - companies from all industry sectors and indeed all sizes and complexities have implemented Invu, to reduce costs, improve business efficiencies or simply to reduce the paper churn within the organisation. Even regional not-for-profit organisations can feel the benefit.

Reducing costs can enable charities to continue the good work within the community. Charities have to work hard for every penny donated to them and need to ensure that every penny is accounted for but also uneroded by hidden costs. Compliance obligations mean additional documentation, deadlines and strict retention criteria to be observed - more administration when funding is inevitably tight.

In Humberside, St John Ambulance uses Invu Document Management to control its paperwork. They can now search, filter and find documents within seconds – document retrieval savings that add up to over six weeks saved every year.

Other benefits include improved business processes, enhanced customer service and reductions in paper consumption. All of this enables focus on the core needs of the charity – spending money on saving lives and not dealing with unnecessary administration.

Next time you see that familiar uniform at a local event consider how a seemingly unlikely candidate for enhanced efficiency changed the way it works in the background. See how St John Ambulance, Humberside changed the way it works and download its case study. Alternatively, give us a call to see how Invu could help your charity.

New Invu Document Management v6.4 now available

We're delighted to announce the release of Invu Document Management v6.4. This follows input from both our customers and partners.

As well as more functionality in the base product this release also introduces 3 new companion modules:

• Invu Email Manager

• Invu Web Approval

• Invu Interactive Zonal OCR/Barcode Capture

Read the full news story:

http://www.invu.net/investor-relations/documentation--announcements/rns-releases.aspx

For further information please contact your Invu Partner or call Invu on 01604 859893.

Invu’s link to Microsoft Dynamics AX creates huge time savings for RMD Kwikform

RMD Kwikform is the Equipment services division of Interserve, the £1.7bn services, maintenance and building group. As part of its business continuity plan, electronic filing formed a logical next stage, and based on feedback from Interserve who was already using Invu, an Invu implementation was confirmed.

Invu links directly to RMD Kwikform’s finance system, Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta). A user can search for a purchase order reference number in the finance system and link directly to the correlating invoice. This creates huge time savings as users no longer have to search manually for paperwork or search through two disparate systems.

Mark Pickard, Senior Accountant, RMD Kwikform comments, “We implemented Invu in August 2007. Prior to this we had a manual filing system. Invu Document Management ties into our business continuity plan – we have procedures in place in case there is any kind of critical incident. Invu supports this plan because all documents are stored electronically and backed up. We are currently using Invu as a document scanning tool allowing us to gain huge amounts of office space through the elimination of paper files.”

Other benefits include increased office space and elimination of paper files. Currently using Invu in the finance, HR and sales departments the company is now considering the potential use of Invu in their export department for storage of foreign export documentation.

Read the full success story http://www.invu.net/case-studies.aspx

RMD Kwikform implemented its Invu software with Invu reseller The Content Group. Contact Invu for more details.