Accounts Payable Automation: Europcar Accelerates!
With over 500 branches across Germany, Europcar is the country’s largest rental company. About 150,000 invoices are received by Europcar every year — everything from tire suppliers’ invoices and garage expenses to advertising, expenses for local branches, and temporary labor invoices. The accounts payable department processes more than 12,000 invoices every month, which is a substantial workload.
Key Challenges
Before the Basware solution was implemented, invoices arrived at Europcar’s individual branches, where they were approved or sent to approvers at other branches or at HQ — all by surface mail! When the invoices fi nally arrived at the accounts payable department, they were processed, posted in Oracle, paid, and archived.As well as being ineffi cient and time consuming, the lack of transparency of this manual
process made it impossible for Europcar to generate a proper cashfl ow forecast. On top of all this, suppliers were calling frequently
to request updates on when their invoices would be paid.
Europcar’s goals for the project were crystal clear: more transparency and effi ciency in the registration and approval process of invoices,
fewer manual tasks, a consistent approval process for all units and branches, and also the ability to generate an accurate cashfl ow
forecast and remove the need to send invoices by internal mail.
Solution: Basware Invoice Automation
Europcar began its search for a proven accounts payable automation solution in autumn 2003.
Basware Invoice Automation was chosen because of the flexibility it offers and because Basware delivers certified integration with all major ERP solutions, including Europcar’s Oracle system. The user-friendliness of the Basware solution was also an important factor, since more than 800 people across Europcar Germany would be working with the solution on a daily basis.
The challenges were more about system acceptance and good change management than technical implementation. To ensure smooth
implementation, Basware helped to create a pilot environment at Europcar’s HQ and, following successful testing, the solution was
rolled out to 500 branches across Germany. To address the challenge of training its users, Europcar organized a roadshow and leveraged
its in-house e-learning solution. The fi nal step was the setup of a frontline support desk for the end users.
Benefits
- Improved overall approval
process information
- More than 30 % savings on
resources
- Savings from improved
cashflow forecast