SUCCESS STORY: Ironman / World Triathlon Corporation (WTC)
LOCATION: Tampa, Florida
INDUSTRY: Sports
THE CHALLENGE: Invoices from global offices were taking months to process and the company was paying fees for wire transfers and late penalties. Labor costs were increasing.
THE SOLUTION: WTC installed PaperSave Document Management to work seamlessly with its existing Microsoft Dynamics GP software and implemented an electronic funds transfer (EFT) program. Now all invoices are coded, scanned and routed immediately from offices all over the world to the corporate office and paid in batches.
RESULTS: Invoice processing time has gone from about four weeks to less than four days and fee payments have been significantly reduced.
World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), owner of the Ironman brand, is behind the world’s most identifiable triathlons, but its accounts payables staff never felt the thrill of victory until they got PaperSave.
Based in Tampa, WTC operates 14 other global offices, each collecting invoices for hundreds of events the company hosts annually. Each race incurs its own expenses to provide services to participants and the staff, including office supplies, car rentals, insurance and barricades.
WTC needed PaperSave to help solve its workflow issues. “Somebody in Germany would receive an invoice in the mail or email, print it out, write the general ledger codes on the invoice, have somebody sign it saying it was approved, scan it and send it in an email to the Tampa office where they would print it out again,” explains Mark Fox, project manager. “It was up to a six-week process.” In Tampa it would take a full day to process 20 or 30 invoices, some of which were scribbled with handwritten notes in languages that only the originating countries could interpret.
” I absolutely would recommend PaperSave. It has reduced our cost to process an invoice from $30-$40 for each transaction to around the $2-$3 mark, and the productivity of a single staff person has gone from 20-30 invoices per day to 250-300+ invoices a day per AP staff member.” Mark Fox, Project Manager for World Triathlon Corporation
Now the local staff, who is already familiar with each transaction, handles the initial coding for each invoice using PaperSave’s electronic workflow. Once the invoice is coded, PaperSave’s Auto-Create module automatically creates the transactions within the Microsoft Dynamics GP batch, without the need to purchase additional Microsoft Dynamics GP licenses. PaperSave tracks each step of the process, providing a complete audit trail and enhancing WTC’s internal controls. “For the international invoices it secondarily serves as an electronic document retention system as well, which is extremely useful given the need to have ‘invoices available’ for tax and audit review at both the local office and here in our headquarters,” adds James Carruthers, vice president of operational finance. “It has a very simple interface,” Fox explains, “and the right level of security.” The software readily allows for exceptions and modifications during the process, even enabling a WTC staff member to add a new vendor.
Because many countries won’t allow checks in lieu of cash, WTC’s staff was manually entering payments for wire transfers, costing an average of $25 and taking about 10 minutes for each invoice. Now when the sites receive an invoice, they scan it into PaperSave, initiating a predefined electronic workflow. The first step in the workflow is coding. Once that step is complete, the invoice is then routed to the appropriate person for approval. Next, the Tampa office receives notification the invoice is ready for payment in Microsoft Dynamics GP. “Our vendors are already seeing a significant reduction in payment time and that will only get better. A 45- to 60-day payment time is down to less than 15 days,” Fox says.
The company has already saved substantially by cutting back on the amount of temporary help they expected to hire. And, though the company plans to grow three or four times in size each year, they only anticipate needing 10 percent more permanent staff in the accounting department. “We have moved from being constantly backed up and under pressure to being proactive and looking at adding additional duties to the accounts payable team to help fill their days,” Carruthers explains.
When training is called for, Fox says it’s no problem even for non-English speaking global employees: “The total amount of training is taking 90 minutes per office. That’s training them on the use of the equipment, the software and internal procedures.”
MEASURES OF SUCCESS:
- Transaction fees and processing time have both been significantly reduced
- Vendors get paid immediately via EFT
- WTC has cut back greatly on its temporary staff and has virtually frozen future hiring plans
- Training can be completed in minutes
- Audits can be accomplished quickly, easily, and with very little cost
About PaperSave
PaperSave is the first and only document management, electronic workflow and invoice automation solution, Certified for Dynamics GP 2013. PaperSave's unique integration provides one click access to documents related to the records within Microsoft Dynamics solutions like AX, GP, SL, & CRM. PaperSave combines document capture and transaction processing to eliminate multiple steps from your process saving time and money!
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