Industry
Education, healthcare, and research
Revenue
$6.41 Billion
Employees
40,000+
Headquarters
Baltimore, MD, USA
Automation has given the team more time to think about how to apply technology and process enhancements to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Now with every improvement the AP department touches fewer invoices and pays vendors in a timely manner to keep the world-renowned institution running smoothly.
As a world leader in research, 30,000 invoices are being processed per month through a shared service center (SSC) for both the Johns Hopkins University and Health System. The organization was inundated with paper as almost half of the invoices it received came in by mail and had to be processed manually. An automated invoice exception handling was missing. As a result, the AP team could only process two-thirds of what it received, which created an increasing back log of 7,000 invoices every month. Challenges faced by the AP team included:
The company wanted to find a solution that would enable them to handle these challenges and provide more control and visibility over invoice processing across the two business units.
Johns Hopkins chose the Serrala AP automation solution for its digitized invoice capture, automated workflow approvals, and enhanced compliance features. The solution enabled invoices to be matched to purchase orders using defined business rules and auto-posting.
Using these business rules, the organization could automate a 3-way match for PO-based invoices that had both purchase orders and goods receipts. It also defined rules to auto-post a selection of invoices with a 2-way match, for example, when there is a price or quantity difference between the invoice and the purchase order (PO).
The goal was to:
AP Automation and the renewed processing structure enabled the SSC to keep their headcount consistent while reducing the regular backlog of invoices to almost zero. The restructuring with the new intelligent solution not only eliminated deficits caused by delays but also smoothed the collaboration with vendors. Automated invoice exception handling improved the AP processes. KPI highlights include:
As a world leader in research, 30,000 invoices are being processed per month through a shared service center (SSC) for both the Johns Hopkins University and Health System. The organization was inundated with paper as almost half of the invoices it received came in by mail and had to be processed manually. An automated invoice exception handling was missing. As a result, the AP team could only process two-thirds of what it received, which created an increasing back log of 7,000 invoices every month. Challenges faced by the AP team included:
The company wanted to find a solution that would enable them to handle these challenges and provide more control and visibility over invoice processing across the two business units.
Johns Hopkins chose the Serrala AP automation solution for its digitized invoice capture, automated workflow approvals, and enhanced compliance features. The solution enabled invoices to be matched to purchase orders using defined business rules and auto-posting.
Using these business rules, the organization could automate a 3-way match for PO-based invoices that had both purchase orders and goods receipts. It also defined rules to auto-post a selection of invoices with a 2-way match, for example, when there is a price or quantity difference between the invoice and the purchase order (PO).
The goal was to:
AP Automation and the renewed processing structure enabled the SSC to keep their headcount consistent while reducing the regular backlog of invoices to almost zero. The restructuring with the new intelligent solution not only eliminated deficits caused by delays but also smoothed the collaboration with vendors. Automated invoice exception handling improved the AP processes. KPI highlights include:
Discover how Serrala helped Adient, a leading automotive supplier, to use more efficient processes thanks to the AP Automation solution.
Discover how Zurich NA achieved financial operational excellence by automating their AP and journal entry processes, reducing costs and improving accuracy.
Discover how Serrala implemented AP automation for manufacturing experts Jabil. Streamlining the processing of over 2 million invoices annually.
