Essex County Council has announced it is on course to save £2.5 million by managing hundreds of thousands of supplier invoices electronically, thanks to a ground-breaking eInvoicing solution from EGS, the UK leaders in spend management.
As part of its procurement transformation programme, the council's new eInvoicing system saves accounts payable teams from spending hundreds of hours each week in re-keying, processing, and archiving paper-based invoices.
The switch to electronic invoices has opened up a wealth of time and cost savings for the council, while speeding up payments and improving relationships with thousands of local, regional and national suppliers.
As one of the largest councils in the UK, Essex spends around £800m each year on a diverse range of good and services, from construction projects and care provision, through to shepherding services and windmill repairs.
The eInvoicing system provided by EGS builds on the pioneering eProcurement marketplace solution it launched for Essex in 2002.
"Today, the county council can order electronically from 97% of its suppliers through the EGS Procurement marketplace. And now the eInvoicing solution provides the final link to complete the end-to-end, purchase-to-pay (P2P) process," says Nicole Edbrooke, Purchase to Pay Manager at Essex County Council.
Currently, around 70,000 invoices per year are received electronically. But this is accelerating to some 230,000 invoices per year. Over five years, the project is on course to deliver £2.5 million in cashable savings, averaging £500,000 per year.
"The council's directorates no longer need to match, batch and re-key invoices, leading to cashable savings. The council also benefits from greater data accuracy, the ability to track invoices easily and faster processing – which helps suppliers too," adds Nicole.
"Paper and postage costs have been minimised, and storage requirements have reduced through e-archiving provided by EGS, replacing the physical space required to store over one million invoices."
Peter Whent, Chief Executive at EGS, commented: "We've been delighted to work alongside a forward-looking organisation like Essex County Council, pioneering new ways to streamline processes and benefit everyone – the council, its citizens and suppliers. The challenge has been to make eInvoicing cost-effective, easy to adopt and scalable. This has been achieved with remarkable success."
"EGS eInvoicing is a proven and robust solution that can integrate with an organisation's accounts payable and accounts receivable systems, including seamless links with back-end ERP systems and all major financial management systems, such as Oracle and SAP."
About EGS
EGS provides solutions to manage and control corporate spending by automating and streamlining the entire purchase-to-pay lifecycle. Our Spend Management solutions give you control, save you money and equip your executive team with the best information to make the right decisions. More than 40,000 users across 150 organisations in the public and commercial sectors employ EGS solutions and save millions of pounds. This year over one million transactions, worth £1 billion of corporate purchasing, will be completed using EGS.
For more information, call EGS on 020 7539 2828 or email info@egsgroup.com
For media enquiries please contact media@egsgroup.com
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