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Jabil and the secret to automating 2 million invoices annually through AP automation

Success Story
  • 2 million invoices processed annually
  • 1 real-time view of vendor invoices across 3 shared services centers
  • +70% straight-through invoice processing rates for selected vendors
  • 2000 hours saved generating vendor statement of accounts

Company: Global Diversified and Electronic Manufacturing Services

Revenue: $27.3 billion

Employees: 260,000

Headquarters: St. Petersburg, FL, USA

AwardBest AP Solution by TMI, 2021

Business Need

Jabil, a high-tech manufacturing company, processes approximately 2 million invoices per year in its three shared services centers (SSC) located in Mexico, Malaysia, and Ukraine. Different processes and different levels of automation were used at each location, which made it difficult to get a real-time, company-wide view into vendor invoices and supplier payments.

Jabil turned to Serrala to implement a single global process for invoice capture and handling. The award-winning AP Automation solution would enable it to:

  • Standardize AP workflows according to the latest best practices 
  • Automate invoice processing in its SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA systems
  • Increase straight-through invoice processing rates across all SSC locations
  • Enable accurate and timely payments to global suppliers
  • Manage rapidly increasing invoice volumes without adding additional headcount

Solution

Jabil Manufacturing used the fully digitized Serrala FS² AccountsPayable solution to automate the way it managed vendor invoices, removing any repetitive and non-value-added steps. The goal was to process as many invoices as possible - touchlessly. Any invoices that could not be auto-posted would be intelligently routed to the correct individuals for further processing, minimizing the number of times AP would have to touch an invoice. By using AP automation for invoicing it´s features of the solution included:

  • Highly accurate, cloud-based digital invoice capture using Serrala SmartEye
  • Capture of e-invoice formats including Fappio and CFDI
  • Automated validation of invoice information against purchase orders and vendor master data
  • Fast detection and rejection of duplicate vendor invoices
  • Automated routing of invoices for approval or exception handling
  • Auto-coding of non-PO invoices based on a predefined coding matrix, AI and machine learning
  • Flexible invoice approvals within SAP or by email, web or mobile device
  • Guided exception handling workflows, enhanced with AI and machine learning
  • Infocenter to filter and sort invoices by vendor, status, available discount or other criteria
  • Ability to flexibly shift invoices across the global SSCs for faster processing
  • Automated generation of vendor statement of accounts
  • Real-time reporting to measure performance, including digital capture, straight-through processing, workload analysis, vendor spend and more

Results

The company was recently awarded "Best AP Solution" by TMI.  The invoice process is fully digitized and automated from end-to-end, which puts Jabil in an enviable position where they can work with internal stakeholders and vendors to continue to streamline and improve it. The flexible solution can be easily adapted to Jabil’s changing business needs, which was essential for keeping vendor payments flowing smoothly during the global supply chain disruptions of 2020 and 2021.

Some of the benefits the company has achieved so far include:

  • 40% average straight-through invoice processing rates
  • +70% straight-through invoice processing rates for selected vendors
  • Reduced number of paper-invoices processed at all SSC locations
  • Reduced the number of duplicate invoices sent by vendors
  • Saved approximately 2000 hours by automatically generating vendor statements of accounts
  • Improved collaboration with vendors, buyers, and approvers

According to Roberto Bayon, Senior Director, Global Shared Services, Jabil:

“Going digital-enabled us to be more flexible and agile …. We were able to quickly redirect vendor invoices from one mailbox to another to balance workloads, and we introduced SmartEye cloud invoice capture to reduce the number of paper-based invoices being processed”.

The Jabil Accounts Payable team can now spend less time touching invoices and more time analyzing why issues arise and how to prevent them. According to Bayon, the team appreciates the opportunity to do more interesting work: analyzing statements of accounts, resolving exceptions, and building positive relationships with vendors and procurement. They can do these valuable tasks now because they are not doing the busy work that was automated using the Serrala solution.

Facing similar Accounts Payable Challenges? Think you’ll benefit from Serrala’s award-winning solutions, from automated journal entry for SAP to accounts payable automation and detailed AP analytics? Speak with one of our experts today.

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