Weetabix is a food processing company producing three billion Weetabix breakfast biscuits every year from its UK main factory in Kettering. It is the largest producer of breakfast cereals in the UK exporting to over eighty countries and has over one thousand employees. It’s holding company has factories in Europe, East Africa, and North America.
Manually processing approximately 35,000 invoices a year with 20% paper and 80% email and with an active base of over 650 suppliers was an administrative challenge.
Tolerances were set in line with Weetabix SOx requirements, any variances had to be manually approved either by signing a hard copy invoice or electronically by email. Not surprisingly collating evidence for the monthly SOx check was time consuming and prone to human error.
The first step towards a more effective future was to get a clear understanding of the manual process to identify areas where an automated solution would add value.
The implementation of the solution followed a rigorous process which included user testing and team training. As is typical with any change management project where there is a process already in place which is familiar to the wider business, getting buy-in can be a challenge, but once users became familiar with the solution, the old processes were soon a distant memory. Requisitioners are now able to review their own invoices through digital in-trays and with built in tolerances, small variances can be approved quickly and efficiently and in line with Weetabix’s own internal controls.
The visibility of the invoice and corresponding approvals is available at any time and can be searched from the document archives.
A further improvement is the ‘straight through processing’ statistics. Being able to measure performance on a regular basis, looking at the percentage of invoices which are going straight through, and drilling down on the ones that are not means that bottle necks and problems can be easily identified.
One of the biggest wins has been the introduction of a dashboard which gives the team visibility of invoice processing statistics within the department. This gives sight of the number of invoices which flow through the system and those which require intervention. Thus, allowing targeted remedial action.
Identifying and addressing issues at source enables quicker processing of invoices and ultimately happier suppliers that are paid on time or even early!
Another significant gain is the use of the Power Bi suite which means Weetabix don’t need the services of a third-party resource to produce the Supplier Payment Practices report as this can now be done in-house.
Gathering audit information used to take many hours of sifting through manual documents, they can now produce audit information in a matter of minutes.
“Documation are really approachable, even when we were working through the issues, they really listened to what we needed and worked hard to understand the process and any problems, and they have been a great partner to work with. “
-Lesley Brown, IS Product Manager at NWG
“Of course, when choosing a new system, it is difficult but I absolutely love Documation, it’s a very simple tool to use, it is intuitive and the functionality was exactly what we were looking for.
Auto matching and auto distribution are two of the most time saving functions that an AP Team could wish for”.
-Liz Coffey – Accounts Payable Manager at Weetabix
We chose Documation as our AP Automation provider because they are a UK based software development company, and had an expert support team, along with powerful software that exceeded our requirements. Documation are efficient, user friendly and always offer their help and support.
-Rachel Heys, Accounts Payable Team at Agrovista
“Documation’s experience and depth of knowledge was evident, every base had been covered, it has clearly been built by AP Professionals with an understanding of the problems that Accounts Payable face on a daily basis, and the match query solution was a clear winner!”
-Liz Coffey Accounts Payable Manager at Weetabix
“One of the real key things for us was Documation’s understanding of what our requirements were which made it really easy for us to get the solution that we wanted. They listened to our needs and offered advice and recommendations in line with our budget.”
Kerry Bailey, Strategic P2P Manager
“Documation are customer focussed and approachable. They are well balanced between delivering a service, demonstrating their expertise whilst always listening”
Nancy Easey, Central Finance & Project Improvement Manager
“A massive thank you for all Documation have done thus far with our project. I know we aren’t the easiest client but I am genuinely excited about the system and its implementation.”
-Ian Westlake, Head of Procurement
