Plantorama
Plantorama achieve significant savings with a NORRIQ invoice scanning solution
Rapid and efficient approval procedures and cash discounts – that is Plantorama's aim in implementing their NORRIQ Invoice Workflow solution.
Profile
Plantorama is a chain of garden centres and pet shops with 7 outlets distributed across Jutland and Fyn. Plantorama's range extends right from garden plants, soil and fertilizers, aquarium equipment, animal feeds and birds to potted plants. Plantorama was founded in 1987 and has since developed rapidly. The company's purchasing department handle 25,000 purchase invoices annually.
Data at the product line level
Plantorama has grown from being a small nursery to a garden centre chain of 7 outlets. Previously it was possible to manage daily operations using paper-based systems, and the fact that it was only possible to approve invoices at the group level was not seen as a problem. Today, things are different, and the need to understand how the business is performing is ever growing.
”Plantorama has initiated an EDI project in order to better understand our business, and Invoice Workflow is a natural part of that project. We're working to get our suppliers to invoice us electronically but that's been something of a challenge. Many smaller suppliers in our industry simply aren't ready for digital services yet. Our target for 2010 is to get 10 of our largest suppliers to invoice electronically. If we can do that then half of our 25,000 invoices will be electronic,” says Plantorama IT Manager Thomas Frank.
According to Thomas Frank, Invoice Workflow will deliver both efficiency and bottom line savings. ”Our ambition is to gather information at the product line level, and that's where Invoice Workflow is an important tool. Invoice Workflow allows us to carry out automatic line matches between the purchase order and the invoice we've received. That saves our purchasing department a lot of time, and it also means that we can achieve cash discounts,” says Thomas Frank, and continues, ”it's these discounts which will finance the entire investment. We're looking at ROI after two years.”
Value instead of trivial work
A further advantage with Invoice Workflow which is important to Thomas Frank is the opportunity it provides to alter and optimise administrative processes including archiving and approval procedures.
”With Invoice Workflow we can kill two birds with one stone. We can approve invoices more quickly, and by doing so we can achieve greater cash discounts. That's a big advantage for an administrative department. By moving to Invoice Workflow we can avoid the more trivial aspects of the job and our employees' job description can start to be weighted more towards being controllers. That means we can spend our time adding value rather than on trivial manual work,” stresses Thomas Frank.
Invoice Workflow – a solution that delivers
Plantorama chose Invoice Workflow because the company had targeted a system that they knew was reliable and would deliver the advantages they had identified.
”I'm familiar with Invoice Workflow from a previous position. It's a system that's been developed over a number of years – and it works! It delivers clear advantages in that it cuts approval times and delivers automatic control. That gives you a better overview and means you can follow up on things when there's a problem. A further advantage with Invoice Workflow is that it's a tried and tested system that's easy to work with. And, last but not least, it's a system that's easy to implement,” says Thomas Frank.
NORRIQ have implemented Invoice Workflow for Plantorama.
”We chose NORRIQ because they really understand our business and have experts available who've done this before. It was crucial for us that we got a supplier who could deliver and wouldn't leave us facing years of delays,” concludes Thomas Frank.
