Who's Bought What - June 2009
Lufthansa AG switches from OCR to paperless invoicing with OB10
Lufthansa has today announced that it is implementing electronic invoicing with OB10. The objective is to use the OB10 service to generate tax-compliant invoices, thereby reducing invoice management costs both in Germany and internationally.
Although the majority of invoices at Lufthansa in Germany are already received via EDI (with the accompanying summary invoice), thousands of paper invoices for goods and services still arrive at Lufthansa every year. Until now, for the German market these invoices have been scanned centrally in Cologne. Using optical character recognition (OCR) technology, they were then "redigitalised" and processed in an electronic workflow process for verification and book entry. Incoming invoices received at Lufthansa offices outside Germany were scanned locally and sent via workflow for processing to one of three international Lufthansa accounting centres. These residual manual processes for managing incoming invoices are not only time-consuming and costly, but also prone to error. All of this will now come to an end. As part of the new e-Invoicing project, which will initially be implemented in Germany and eight other countries including UK, Canada and US, the majority of invoices will be processed completely in electronic form using OB10.
In addition to the cost savings e-Invoicing delivers, Lufthansa expects the cooperation with OB10 to lead to considerable process simplification. Over the medium term, the entire Financial Supply Chain is to be moved to an electronic process. Additional advantages of the e-Invoicing system include faster transmission of invoices and significantly improved data quality as invoice information is fed directly into the ERP system and its associated archive. Lufthansa will also benefit from higher productivity in its invoice processing due to the automated validation of invoice data. Furthermore, pure electronic invoicing will greatly reduce the number of invoices from suppliers that cannot be allocated, and therefore significantly reduce the accompanying queries and complaints regarding payment. e-Invoicing also has advantages for suppliers as they not only profit from reduced process costs, but also the cost and time delays associated with posting invoices.
Martin Steuernagel, Department Manager for External Accounting at Deutsche Lufthansa AG said ”What really tipped the scales for OB1, was the supplier enrolment programme, which will ensure that our international suppliers and partners will also be promptly connected to the OB10 network… and it will help us save valuable time and resources as we implement the overall project."
INTTRA Signs Up Direct Insite
INTTRA, one of the world's largest ocean industry e-commerce platforms, responsible for processing over 175,000 electronic container orders between shippers, forwarders and carriers per week, signed with Direct Insite Corp to provide its eBilling and electronic invoice delivery service.
Direct Insite's Invoices Online (IOL) service will automate the manual billing processes within INTTRA. Electronic bookings, shipping instructions and shipping orders will be auto-reconciled within IOL to produce accurate e-Invoices for INTTRA's carrier customers.
"Direct Insite will automate our complex global invoicing processes," said Valerie Rainey, INTTRA CFO. "IOL provides our carriers greater invoicing accuracy and accelerated billing cycles through a self service portal which provides detailed visibility into their consolidated online invoices."
"With Direct Insite's Invoices Online solution, INTTRA will be able to produce accurate consolidated electronic invoices, reducing billing discrepancies," stated Jim Cannavino, Direct Insite Corp. Chairman and CEO. "This solution illustrates how Direct Insite provides companies like INTTRA the ability to redirect employees and financial resources towards growing their business rather than handling time consuming manual billing processes."
Direct Insite Corp. provides e-Invoicing and workflow solutions that streamline processes and reduce costs within Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable operations. The Company's e-Invoice management services automate Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash activities such as invoice validation, order matching, dispute handling, and e-payment. Direct Insite Corp. solutions are used by 7,000 corporations across 62 countries, 15 languages and multiple currencies. For more information about Direct Insite Corp.
Danish Government selects Basware
Basware has been awarded a five year contract to deliver its Travel & Expense Management (TEM) solution to the Danish Agency for Governmental Management, a public body which generates and manages over 100,000 travel expense transactions per year.
Basware Travel & Expense Management solution enables management of travel-related expenditure, data and transactions in 175 governmental departments.
The implementation of the Basware TEM solution is one element in a central initiative which aims to drive administrative efficiencies throughout 175 departments within the Danish government including the Ministries of Justice, Employment, Culture, Defence and Finance. Roll-out of the solution and corresponding administrative systems will take place during the second quarter of this year with completion of the entire deployment scheduled for 2010 with an expected 60,000 users.
"We are delighted to announce Basware as our chosen strategic partner for the implementation of this solution," said Henrik Pinholt, Vice Director, Danish Agency for Governmental Management. "With the Basware TEM solution in place, we expect to significantly simplify and streamline our process for handling travel and expense claims, and optimise the efficiency of the business travellers, managers and accountants who handle these transactions on a daily basis."
