Mohawk Medbuy

Mohawk Medbuy is a not-for-profit shared services organization operating at national scale, supporting hundreds of hospitals and healthcare providers across Canada. The organization provides sourcing and other supply chain support, including centralized back-office services across a complex, highly regulated healthcare environment, helping hospitals reduce administrative burden and focus resources where they matter most: patient care.

20 hospitals. 20+ ERPs & Purchasing Systems. One AP service. 

Accounts Payable (AP) is an important component of this model. Today, Mohawk Medbuy provides AP services for 20 member hospitals, managing million-plus invoice volumes across a landscape of more than 20 ERP and purchasing systems. Each hospital operates with its own systems, approval structures, and local AP processes, creating a level of complexity that few shared service models are designed to handle.

“For nearly ten years, Basware has supported our growth as we’ve taken on Hospitals' accounts payable function, enabling us to scale efficiently and deliver consistent value across our network,” explains Ryan Martens, Senior Director of Accounts Payable Services and Site Facility Management at Mohawk Medbuy.

The challenge was not just automating invoices. It was creating an AP service that works at scale without forcing hospitals into a one-size-fits-all model.

When Mohawk Medbuy began consolidating AP services in 2016, flexibility and configuration within standard best practice was essential. Hospitals differed widely in ERP environments, AP structures, invoice volumes, and approval workflows.

Basware was selected because it could sit above that complexity. Its ERP adapter and integration framework allowed Mohawk Medbuy to connect multiple hospitals into a single AP platform while preserving local system choices. As Martens notes, Basware could “bring in multiple organizations through their ERP adapter,” enabling shared services without disruption in a common platform for the AP Centre. Later transition to Cloud delivery made scaling fast and secure. Mohawk Medbuy could onboard new hospitals quickly while maintaining consistency and control.

One AP view across fragmented ERP landscapes

Today, Mohawk Medbuy operates across more than 20 ERP and purchasing systems, including Meditech, SAP, MediSolutions, Epic, and Cerner. In many cases, individual hospitals run multiple purchasing systems in parallel.

Basware acts as the unifying AP layer across this fragmented landscape. Regardless of ERP, invoices flow into a single platform. This creates one consistent view of invoices, suppliers, approvals, and performance across the entire hospital network.

That single AP view became the foundation for everything that followed.

Instead of managing AP site by site, Mohawk Medbuy can now compare performance across hospitals, identify patterns, and focus improvement efforts where they deliver the greatest impact. Martens explains that bringing hospitals into one application enabled cross-hospital comparisons, impacting KPIs and returns like improved early payment.

Basware also provides continuity during change. As hospitals replace or modernize ERP and HIS systems, AP operations remain stable. According to Martens, the ability to “keep accounts payable lights on during those transitions” has become a core element of financial risk mitigation.

With a single AP platform in place, Mohawk Medbuy shifted from stabilization to optimization. Continuous improvement is now built into the operating model, supported by Basware’s structured optimization program.

Consistent data across all hospitals allows the AP team to define value-led KPIs and track progress over time. As Martens puts it, “It’s just getting your hands on the data and being able to tell a story with that data.” That story is shared across hospitals, creating alignment around performance, accountability, and improvement priorities.

This approach ensures that gains achieved at one hospital can be replicated across the network, rather than remaining isolated wins.

Automation that removes friction, not control

As invoice volumes increased, Mohawk Medbuy introduced Basware SmartPDF AI to streamline invoice intake across its hospital network.

Since go-live, more than one million invoices have been processed through SmartPDF AI. Invoices enter the system faster, suppliers receive automatic acknowledgment, and rework caused by missing or rejected invoices has been largely eliminated. Martens highlights that invoices are now “no longer being rejected and missing from the system”, reducing friction for AP teams and hospital users alike.

At this scale, automation is about reliability as much as speed. SmartPDF AI helps ensure AP remains predictable, controlled, and resilient as volumes grow.

Fewer invoice problems = more resources for patients

For Mohawk Medbuy, AP efficiency is not an abstract finance metric. Every improvement in accounts payable creates capacity elsewhere in the healthcare system.

Martens makes the connection clear, explaining that efficiencies generated in back-office services create cost savings, revenue, and time that “can be redirected to frontline care.” Reduced administrative workload means hospital staff spend less time resolving invoice issues and more time and resources focused on clinical priorities.

Built for what comes next

With a unified AP dataset already in place, Mohawk Medbuy is well positioned for the next phase of innovation. AI represents an opportunity to extend efficiency further while unlocking deeper insight from AP data. Martens describes AI as “the next iteration of opportunity” within accounts payable, aligned with Mohawk Medbuy’s long-term goal of delivering scalable, data-driven services that strengthen healthcare delivery.