Self-Service applications to drive
cash collection, reduce DSO, and
improve efficiencies
Avolent and SPG
NorCal OAUG Training Days
March 7th, 2005
Francesco Hidayat – SPG, Executive Vice President of
Consulting Services
Chris Kenney – Avolent, Global Director of Alliances
Overview
SPG
Who is SPG
Tasks and Challenges faced by OA Users
Taking a unique approach
Avolent
Who is Avolent
What Finance is really thinking
Addressing Finance’s needs
Case studies
Qualifying the pain
Q&A
Francesco Hidayat –
Executive Vice President of Consulting Services
Who is SPG
Southern Pacific Group is a Management Consulting firm with offices in
Southern and Northern California.
Management team alumnus from Accenture, Ernst & Young, and
Deloitte
Experience in over 80 Oracle implementations
Broad expertise in extending your investment in Oracle applications
Tasks
Financial Business Units are looking to automate the
invoice to settlement process:
Self-service: reduce costs via enterprise wide and customer
instant access to data with Oracle (DSO’s, invoice reprints)
Automate manual processes: (payment, reconciliation)
Leverage their Oracle Investment: rapidly introduce new
services/products that access data within Oracle
Greater insight: data from different systems in disparate
business units
High Processing Costs: $44-$66 per invoice
Challenges
Oracle Applications professionals are faced with:
Self-service: Limited access to data with Oracle modules
Automate processes: lack of IT dollars and resources
Leverage Oracle Investment: constantly dealing newly with
acquired systems and customers
Greater insight: can’t integrate data from other vendor and
home grown system
Taking a unique approach
Evaluate an approach that can provide:
Self-service: acts as a front end to provide access to invoicing
and customer data from Oracle and other systems
Automates processes: invoice payment, cash management,
reconciliation, disputes, invoice customization, etc.
Leveraging Investment: incorporates new customer or systems
without upgrading or replacing existing systems
Greater insight: pull data from different systems, push out to
customers, and foot back billing information to systems for
disparate business units
ROI Beyond Invoice Presentment
Cash Flow
Control & Insight
ROI
Interactive
Invoicing
•
The Basics
•
Presenting Electronic
Invoices via email.
ROI: Reduced Printing
Costs.
Customer portal with
the ability to pay,
dispute, match,
search, and report.
ROI: Reduced support
calls, faster cash flow.
Business Benefit
•
Ability to automate,
consolidate and
reconcile among
multiple systems.
•
Provide customers
with approval
workflow, proof of
delivery, and A/P
ready formats.
•
Analytics, discount
management, and cash
flow forecasting.
ROI: Streamlined financial
processes, and proactive
control of cash flow.
Chris Kenney –
Global Director of Alliances
About Avolent
E-billing and cash flow optimization software
Over $44 billion invoices processed through BizCast
Serve companies with large numbers or complex invoices
Front-end to Oracle and other ERP, SCM, CRM systems
Provides finance dept with greater insight and control into
the “invoice to cash” process
Reduce costs and streamlines financial processes between
company and their customers:
Electronic Invoice Presentment & Payment
Customer Self-Service
Cash Management and forecasting
Dynamic Trades terms Management
Key Bank
Providing value
Business
Issues
Enterprise Planning Systems automate “order-to–
invoice” processes, but the “invoice-to-settlement”
processes including dispute resolution and payment
processing are mostly time and labor intensive.
These problems are compounded when multiple
billing systems are involved.
Focus
Managing the financial relationships with your
customers by automating “invoice-to-settlement”
processes and tying together customer and business
financial systems.
Business
Drivers
Accelerate
collections, reduce
DSO
Reduce cost of
invoicing
Reduce customer
support costs, dispute
resolution
Improve cash flow
forecasting
Improved customer
reporting and
analysis
Discount
management
Why Avolent for Oracle Users
With Avolent’s BizCast:
Oracle customers can incorporate automated financial
processes into their global ERP, CRM and self-service
strategies
Enables Oracle to act as a central solution for all customer
interactions
You have a front-end solution that integrates Oracle with
proprietary and other vendor based systems
Extending your Oracle Investment:
Invoice & Lower Level Invoice Data Consolidation
Cash Management and Allocation from Consolidated Invoice to
Desperate Back Office A/R & Billing Platforms
B2B Multiple Invoice Distribution (Email, Fax, XML)
B2B Multiple Invoice Reprint Download
Complex B2B Usage Reporting
Dynamic Drill-Down into Complex B2B Account Hierarchies
Proof-of-Delivery Real-time Integration & Reconciliation
Line Item Dispute Management & Note Collaboration
Complex B2B Invoice Template Management & Configuration
BSP – Multiple Biller Support
Integrated Pay-Side Data Analytics (from Supplier Portal)
BizCast in your environment
Today’s Inefficient and Manual Processes
Existing IT Systems
Shipping
Billing
Customer
Bills
Order
mgmt
Financials
A/R
Customer Service
Inquiries,
Disputes
Billing & Finance
Reconciliation,
Payments
Reports
IT
Compounded by:
 Confusing customer experience
 No clear audit trail of changes
 Mess of credits/payments
 Large write-offs
Account
Management
Account Inquiry
& Status
How Do You Know? Just Look At Your Invoices…
Reconciliation
Inventory
Management
Credit
Calculation
…and your processes. What processes are
your customers asking you to do?
Search
“Help me find
the invoice that…”
Custom Reports
“How much have I
spent on x, y, and z”
Archives
“I need a copy of an old invoice”
“I never received an invoice”
How eBilling Fits In
Subsidiary #1
Billing System
Subsidiary #2
Billing System
A/R System
Customers
eInvoice
Direct to A/P Network
Printer Service
-Receive
-Pay
-Dispute/Adjust
-Download
-Analyze
Customer Service
ERP System
Embedded Access
(Siebel, Remedy, etc.)
BizCast:
• Consolidates all back-end billing systems
• Creates eBills to be reviewed/paid/disputed
• Tracks all steps of the invoice-to-cash cycle
-Search
-Archive
-Adjust
-Manage Cash
-Allocate
-Forecast
Benefits of Avolent Solution
Reduce paper billing and
payments costs 60-90%
• Eliminate paper & postage
costs
• Eliminate invoice reprints
• Eliminate rebilling
• Reduce payment processing
costs 30-75%
• Increase remittance accuracy
Streamline invoice-to-pay
process
• Streamline reconciliation 2060%
• Eliminate cash app exceptions
• Reduce dispute resolution
times 20-80%
• Reduce bill delivery times 1060%
Lower IT maintenance
costs 40-80%
• Eliminate IT-supported
customer requests for reports,
data downloads, and custom
statements
• Enable shared services for
billing, AR
• Eliminate need for
consolidated billing initiatives
Improve financial efficiency
10-45%
• Reduce DSO 10-25%
• Reduce working capital
requirements 5-15%
• Improve cash forecasting
accuracy
Reduce costs across a
number of business
processes
• Billing
• Payment
• Cash application
• Reconciliation
• Deduction resolution
• Customer service
Increase overall revenue
and profit
• Handle more new business
without adding headcount
• Improve customer service &
related customer sat
• Deliver consolidated business
lines
Case Study – F50 Manufacturer/Distributor
Overview
$40 billion in revenue
Over 100 million invoices w/a billion line items annually from 1 million + customers
Problems
High DSO
Decentralized invoice management with disparate systems
Costly customer service for reconciliation, invoice reprints and archiving
Multiple costly and manual financial processes
Solution
Reduced DSO to industry lowest
Consolidate invoices from multiple systems and foot back payments – saving $5-10
million on replacing or updating IT investment
Saved approx. $1 million annually on archiving
Provide self-service for dispute resolution, reprint requests, spending analysis,
approval and payment
Case Example – F200 Manufacturer/Services
Problem:
Global provider with decentralized invoice management system in 7 regions
High volume of invoices, calls about invoices
Complex invoices that customers want to customize – 180+ templates
High cost of reconciling payments
Want to improve “customer lock-in”
Solution – EIPP System
Eliminate the paper
• Reduce 180+ templates to 15
• Eliminate 30-50% of printing costs
Streamline the exchange
• Allow customers to modify look-and-feel of invoices
• Downloadable in many formats, reports
Eliminate the process
• Electronic payment, auto-reconciliation
Case Study – F1000 Financial Services firm
Overview
$8.5 billion provider of office equipment
Over 10 million invoices per year for leased equipment
Write-offs from incorrect invoicing costing several million dollars a year
Program
Consolidate invoices from multiple ERP systems from disparate business units
In a price commoditized industry, reduce back-office costs
Provide self-service as a competitive differentiator and to reduce costs
Need to accelerate cash flow and reduce Day Sales Outstanding (DSO)
Results:
Projected DSO savings in first 4 years of $1.6 million
Save $5 million by not replacing/upgrading billing systems
Projected $9 million dollar savings in write offs in first 4 years
Is this right for your needs?
Highest ROI occurs when:
2,000+ invoices per month
Invoices are complex
Invoices are consolidated from multiple back-end systems
Lots of invoice processing and administrative costs
Poor DSO
How to find out – ask your customers first!
The Customer Readiness Assessment Survey
Results determine ROI
Ask the Analysts
BizCast #1 EIPP solution – Forrester, Celent
Southern Pacific Group
Northern California Office
Contact Information:
2033 Gateway Place
Mark West, Vice President
5th Floor
Office: 408-961-8675
San Jose, California 95110
Mobile: 818-368-4041
www.spgus.com
mark.west@spgus.com