SPIRAX SARCO GETS FIRM GRIP ON FINANCIALS WITH TOKOPEN

- Invoice capture and approval

Tighter control of financial operations is being achieved in the UK by the world's leading steam process equipment manufacturers Spirax Sarco thanks to Tokairo's TokOpen document management system.

Replacing a former mainframe-based process, the new TokOpen-based solution has helped the company get a firmer grip on financial applications and provided a platform for better financial planning. Benefits include very significant time savings for accounts payable and general ledger departments, virtual elimination of paper in most activities with consequent savings in storage overheads, and improved security, back-up and disaster contingency.

Through increased efficiency, the system has made a major contribution to improving supplier relationships by reducing time taken to process an invoice for payment and increased visibility, enabling queries to be dealt with more efficiently. Typically processing time has been nearly halved and the number of invoices paid late fell significantly.

Key elements bestowed by TokOpen that have enabled the company to achieve these results are: more reliable information capture, more secure data storage, easier access to information and raised visibility of data throughout the corporate infrastructure.

"There was a lack of financial process 'visibility' among managers who couldn't always see what was going on, difficulties in retrieving and accessing information, and a perceived slackness in action. Generally, there was an unacceptable inefficiency. I wouldn't say we weren't doing our job. But we thought we could do better".

"We conducted a senior management brainstorming session to identify any areas that remained labour intensive," says Powell. "One of those areas was purchasing, goods receiving, and purchase invoice processing." For our applications we looked at the option of writing our own system as well as acquiring a proprietary package. Basically, these were all ERP systems and there was a huge difference in price, although functionality was all pretty much the same - some were stronger on the manufacturing applications; some better on financials".

"At that stage we weren't looking for a document management system as such. We just wanted a solution for raising purchase orders, receiving goods, receiving and processing invoices, handling purchase and nominal ledger - and imaging that could provide integration. When we looked at DM systems we found that some imaging solutions seemed to operate on the basis that imaging would be the driving force, whereas our focus was on the actual financial applications driving the system".

"We selected the Tokairo TokOpen system because it fitted with this approach, we could integrate it within our existing software, it was lower cost than the competitors and Tokairo demonstrated that they understood our business needs and objectives".

Implementation was conducted smoothly, starting with purchase credit notes, then non order-related invoices, followed by order-related invoices. "Under the old system we were seen as good payers and this was one aspect used to develop relationships with suppliers. However, we felt that we could improve even more and further enhance these relationships." Immediate benefits included a dramatic reduction in the time taken to process invoices. Typically, time taken to process an invoice was nearly halved and the number of invoices paid late fell significantly".

A key difference was improved visibility of the financial information across the corporate infrastructure - those involved in approving and monitoring financial activity could actually see relevant documents online and have the ability to respond and react much more quickly.

"This improved our control of financials," says Powell. "Managers can now give or withhold approval, and raise queries on the spot. Those queries can be chased more effectively, and when we have direct contact with creditors all supporting documentation is immediately available - fewer phone conversations, less correspondence. Now, once we have scanned in documents we just throw the paper away because the system supports acceptable and quality approved business process procedures. That means no filing cabinets, no rooms to store paper, and very many fewer people to run around with documents in their hands".

"Under the new system, we can drill down to further levels of document detail very quickly and easily to answer supplementary queries. Audit trails are easier and now there is a full daily data backup which more than satisfies auditors' disaster recovery procedure requirements - and has significantly improved our information security".

Since the original implementation, the system has been extended to a variety of other applications, some financial and some not. These have included storage of general ledger correspondence, notification of suppliers' name, address and bank detail changes, information on supplier checks and credit agency reports, storage of costing information that was previously held on microfiche, central filing and storage and movement of technical drawings.

"We have taken upgrades several times and on each occasion the upgrade has gone smoothly with a minimum of disruption. Secondly, on the fairly rare occasions when we have needed to contact Tokairo for support, that support has always been readily forthcoming and the problem rapidly resolved".