Admiral to cut paper invoice processing ten-fold

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The Admiral Group is improving its purchase-to-pay (P2P) processes ten-fold with new document management and imaging technology.

The insurance provider said it is integrating the new technology with its existing Sage Enterprise accounting system to save on time-consuming, manual-based P2P processes and so cut costs, free up storage space and enable the finance department to have greater control on invoice approvals procedures.

Admiral's brands include Diamond, Bell, Gladiator, Confused.com and elephant.co.uk. And the Group has been relying on manual data entry for logging invoices, passing paper documents around for approval, then subsequently raising cheques to be posted with remittances for payment.

All paid invoices are then stored away in on-site filing cabinets and are shipped to an off-site archive facility after six months. By investing in new electronic systems, it also expects to save 3,000 a year just by eliminating the need to issue cheques as payment.

"These processes are labour-intensive, inefficient, costly and prone to both data entry errors and lost invoices during the approval process," said Coralie Poumel, Admiral's financial controller.

She said that, by taking on the new document management and imaging technology from provider Version One, the group will remove huge amounts of paper from its P2P procedures.

"The finance department will no longer need to chase paper invoices around the company during the approval process, provide copy invoices and print, envelope and post cheques and remittances. The filing and retrieval of paper invoices will also be eliminated and time spent manually entering invoice data will be significantly reduced," said Poumel.

Admiral will be able to enter all purchase invoices electronically using a Kodak scanner. This enables the Sage system to read and verify the data and automatically send them for approval and coding within the accounts department.

It will also streamline the approvals procedure, where the relevant department managers will be able to view the imaged invoices via weblinks.

Once authorised, the purchase invoices will be paid electronically by BACS-IP and the accompanying remittances will be delivered either by electronic mail or automated fax.