Processing these invoices on time is crucial, as Edwin’s story makes clear. “If we’re missing just one part, we can’t build the bike, and production comes to a temporary halt. That’s not an option. So we absolutely want to prevent a supplier from stopping deliveries to us because we’re late with payment.”

Automated invoice processing with Basware

That’s why Gazelle decided to implement automated invoice processing a few years ago. The choice quickly fell on Basware, Edwin explains. “We wanted an invoice processing solution with a strong reputation in the market, not some small-scale package. That gives us more confidence. Basware is highly regarded everywhere.” Especially when combined with SAP, which Gazelle also uses, Basware has proven itself in the invoice processing market.

“We absolutely want to prevent a supplier
from stopping deliveries to us because we pay late.”

After initially trying another implementation partner, Edwin and his team ultimately turned to 4CEE in 2016 to implement Basware. Edwin: “Sales manager Jeroen Rozeboom’s honest approach had made an impression on us. Unfortunately, things hadn’t gone entirely smoothly with the previous implementation partner, so we hoped that he and his colleagues could resolve that for us. Ultimately, 4CEE reimplemented Basware, and we’ve made significant progress ever since.”

Matching invoices to order lines

That’s how Gazelle made the switch to e-invoicing in collaboration with 4CEE. “We match order invoices at the line item level rather than by total amount,” Edwin explains. “That makes invoice processing complex—especially when you consider that we regularly receive unstructured invoices that are 60 pages long. If even one line isn’t recognized or read correctly, you’ve got a problem. I still remember when we’d just print out one of those 60-page invoices so we could go through hundreds of lines with a pen to check which ones were missing. “It was a nightmare,” he recalls of those days.

With e-invoicing, that’s no longer an issue. “Then you can be sure the data on the invoice is correct. The match with the purchase order or goods receipt is automatically established as soon as the e-invoice is received. Employees don’t have to do anything with it anymore; you don’t see the invoice until it’s already in the payment list,” says Edwin.

Processing e-invoices is much faster

Invoice processing is therefore much faster and more accurate thanks to e-invoicing. Edwin: “That’s good for everyone involved. The faster we can process invoices, the better we’re able to pay them on time. That’s obviously good for suppliers because they get paid faster. But it’s also good for us, because it gives us faster insight into our expenses.” In addition, a customer often qualifies for an early-payment discount from regular suppliers if they pay sooner.

To illustrate the speed of invoice processing, Edwin explains that when he first started at Gazelle, 18,000 invoices were processed. “And back then, we regularly fell behind, which meant people from other finance departments had to step in to help process the invoices.”

Now, the bicycle manufacturer’s Accounts Payable department receives a total of more than 30,000 invoices annually—about 6,000 order invoices and 24,000 expense invoices. The number of FTEs involved in invoice processing has increased only minimally. According to Edwin, this small increase is mainly due to the fact that the majority of the invoices are expense invoices. These require more manual intervention by employees. Edwin: “After all, there’s no goods receipt or purchase order to match the invoice against. An employee creates the entry, and then the budget manager must approve it.”

Prioritize suppliers with the most and largest invoices

Where should you start once you’ve decided to make the switch to e-invoicing? Edwin outlines how they approached this at Gazelle. “We started the rollout with suppliers who send us the most and largest order invoices. If you can get your top suppliers on board, you’ve already covered a large portion of your invoices.”

“E-invoicing also benefits suppliers:
it speeds up the processing and, consequently, payment.”

He estimates that e-invoicing now accounts for about 80% of incoming order invoices—a significant portion. “4CEE guided us through the supplier onboarding process. When reaching out to them, we focused on explaining why we chose e-invoicing and that it also benefits them. Namely, that e-invoicing speeds up the processing and, ultimately, payment.”

Not everyone can or wants to connect

A good onboarding campaign can be crucial to the success of an e-invoicing rollout. Not every supplier is able or willing to simply connect to the chosen e-invoicing solution. “Some need a little more encouragement than others,” Edwin agrees. But even when the willingness is there, it doesn’t always work out. “Some of our suppliers have outdated software, which makes it impossible for them. It’s sometimes still particularly difficult for suppliers from Asia.”

In such cases, a customized solution can offer a remedy. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Edwin explains that Gazelle has two major suppliers, with many large invoices, who were unable to connect to e-invoicing. 4CEE devised a solution for this. The supplier hardly notices any difference; they send their invoices via email as usual. The invoices then take a slight detour but still end up in Basware correctly.

Automatically process expense invoices with
e-invoicing

In addition to order invoices, some expense invoices are already being received via e-invoicing. For example, a staffing agency always sends large invoices with many line items to Gazelle. “Those line items have to be posted to a different cost center every time. Sometimes we had to create as many as 20 or 30 posting entries with different cost centers. That took a lot of time. But now this supplier submits the invoice via XML. 4CEE has configured the system so that these come in at the line-item level and are immediately posted automatically in the correct way, even if there’s no purchase order attached.”

The Accounting Manager says, half-smiling, half-sighing, that paper invoices still come in from time to time. “Then we just scan them manually with the copier. From there, they’re sent to our email and continue on their way as a normal expense invoice.”

Processing expense reports as expense invoices

About 3,000 of the expense invoices are employee expense reports. Gazelle uses 4CEE’s Expense Portal. “In the past, expense reports were submitted manually and then reimbursed at the end of the month along with payroll. That could be tricky at times. Especially when larger amounts were involved and the purchase took place at the beginning of the month—not everyone was willing or able to simply cover those costs upfront,” Edwin recalls. “Because then you had to wait a long time for your money. Giving an advance was, of course, a kind of solution, but it was a lot of hassle. We had to add the payment manually and later offset the advance against the expense report…”

Now, Gazelle employees submit their expense reports via an app. In the app, they can select the cost center themselves. “The expense reports are then simply processed as expense invoices, and payment is made weekly. So employees get their money back much faster. You can imagine that this app was an instant hit with our colleagues,” says Edwin.

“Besides, it’s just a good app that works well and looks professional. Finance and Control isn’t exactly a ‘sexy’ department—it has a bit of a stuffy image. With an app like this, we’re definitely scoring some points,” he adds with a wink.