Shaw Trust, the UK 's largest providers of employment services for disabled people, has purchased BasWare's Enterprise Purchase to Pay software, including the Purchase Management and Invoice Processing tools. The BasWare software solution will be implemented across all of Shaw Trust's offices, and it is expected that nearly half of its 1,200 employees will have access to the invoice approval system.
Shaw Trust has invested in the technology to reduce costs and gain better control over its financial processes. The charity's 60 offices and 28 retail outlets were collectively using over 5,000 different suppliers, generating over 50,000 invoices per year. By implementing BasWare, it expects to reduce both the number of suppliers and invoices by a third.
Gregory Asante , Head of Commercial Enterprise Finance, explains: "We wanted to look at procurement across the business to better control our spend. We have a number of cost centres around the country, but they work independently, and as a consequence there has been a lot of duplication in procurement. This meant there were some significant gains to be made if we could move to fewer preferred suppliers. To achieve this we needed visibility into our systems, which BasWare's Purchase Management will give us. It quickly became apparent that we could make further efficiency gains by automating invoice processing alongside procurement, and the combination will provide a major boost to our overall profitability."
Purchase Management will allow Shaw Trust to automate the procurement workflow from requisition generation to approval, order and goods receipt. The system will also provide detailed spend analysis reports, helping the finance team to make further efficiencies. By integrating this with Invoice Processing, invoice matching, and contract matching software, Shaw Trust has removed manual tasks from the entire financial process. This will reduce the processing cost per invoice and allow the finance team to focus on priority tasks rather than invoice approval.
Asante concludes: "So far we have been really impressed with the BasWare system. The solution is being implemented on a project basis and should be completed within four to six months. We expect the integration with our suppliers and additional client management systems to be quick and simple, meaning we are able to negotiate better deals for the charity."
Paul Cowley at BasWare comments: "We are delighted that Shaw Trust has chosen to use BasWare. Reducing unnecessary cost and providing control over financial processes is important to any business, and the impact on the bottom line for a charity can help make a real difference to its cause."
