From paper to digital invoice processing in 30 countries

Atradius had a clear goal in mind: transform the processing of the 30,000 incoming invoices per year from paper to digital and standardize this process worldwide.

All finance departments must now process invoices in the same way, using Basware and Kofax software. Only when specific legal requirements call for it, is it still allowed to deviate from the standard template.

The importance of change management

But that transition was easier said than done, Marcel's story shows. "We want all finance departments in all countries to work the same way. But that's a culture thing. And it means a change in your daily processes."

He therefore emphasizes in his story that change management is an aspect of such an implementation process that should not be underestimated. His advice is to involve people right from the start and to create support. It is also important to keep supervising all employees until they are comfortable with the new situation.

Not everyone worked the same way

Before a process can be standardized and automated, it is very important to accurately map the current situation. That is exactly where the project started for Marcel and his team; gathering information from all financial departments. "As a result, immediately everyone was already involved in the project," he says. "We examined for each country what the existing processes looked like at that time and what then actually happened in the day-to-day business."

This sometimes resulted in surprises: "Then it turns out that over the years many work processes have arisen in a kind of natural way, but which nobody actually knows about. And which is at odds with the standard process we wanted to implement."

In these cases, it was important to start the conversation, Marcel says. In doing so, they clearly explained what the new process would look like and especially what the advantages of this new way of working were.

E-invoicing is hot topic

Besides the differences in working methods and the necessary linguistic plus cultural differences, the difference in legislation per country also posed a challenge in this international project. For example, e-invoicing is currently a hot topic. Atradius' operations include Italy, where the government has introduced the Clearance Model. This means that the government wants all invoices to be transparent and that e-invoicing is mandatory. This obviously also has implications for the digital invoice processing process.

Success factors implementation process

Marcel tells how his team worked with ICreative to make the implementation of the new invoice processing process a success. Atradius decided to start close to home and implement the new process in the Netherlands and Germany first. This way they could first experience for themselves how it works and what impact it has. From this they could learn a lot and take this knowledge with them during the rollout in the following countries.

Atradius' good preparation and clear goals also contributed to the success, as did taking extensive time for training the financial staff involved. ICreative's account manager elaborates on this and shares a tip: "It is important that there is not too much time between training the employees, testing the software and actually going live. To maintain momentum and engagement, it's better to start testing and going live immediately after training."

The gentlemen also cite the good cooperation between Atradius and ICreative as an important success factor. "If you work together, you can achieve a lot," he says.

Benefits of digital invoice processing

More than 30 countries have already switched to digital invoice processing. Marcel talks about the benefits of this new way of working. "For us it mainly provides a fast, automatic invoice flow. The faster we have the invoices in, the faster we can pay." Winking, he adds, "Of course, that fits in nicely with our business as a credit insurer."

Marcel also says that thanks to automation, many manual tasks are being eliminated. "As a result, we can assign employees to work that is more re-added. Like analysis or providing information to the rest of the organization."

As an important additional benefit, Marcel cites sustainability. Basware recently studied the environmental benefits of a company switching from paper invoice processing to a digital process. This showed that for every twenty thousand incoming invoices per year, you save over ninety trees that would otherwise be cut down for paper. It also saves three hundred tons of water and about thirty tons of CO2 emissions.

Rather listen than read?
Meike de Jong, presenter and editor at RTL News interviewed Marcel Verharen (Atradius) and Peter Derksen (ICreative) during a talk show. Watch the video now!

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