“They send PDF invoices by email; we receive them as e-invoices.”
At Renewi’s Shared Service Center in Lommel, Flanders, things are going green. Whiteboards instead of flip charts, and employees with two computer monitors and just a notepad on their desks. This isn’t surprising, since Renewi deals with tons of waste every day. The invoice flow has now been digitized; this isn’t just good for the environment, but also a relief for employees, who can now focus on other business processes.
The next step after receiving an invoice: invoice processing
Even though we’re all becoming increasingly environmentally conscious, we still produce a lot of “residual waste” every day. Hans Wolfs, Accounts Payable Manager atRenewi, explains: “For our 5,400 FTEs across nine countries, waste collection and processing are central to our operations. And we’re able to recycle 93% of this waste, a major ‘green’ USP compared to our competitors. We implement sustainability throughout every level of the organization. Our facility in Lommel, where more than 110 employees work at the Shared Service Center, consumes hardly any energy and is self-sufficient.” But before this “sustainable” Shared Service Center was occupied, invoice processing took place in Mol—where the Flemish SSC was located—using an old-fashioned, paper-based method.
“I joined Renewi (then still Van Gansewinkel) in 1998 and experienced the old system firsthand. Everything was running smoothly, but when we had to process approximately 45,000 invoices per year in 2003, we had to make a change. I got in touch with 4CEE’s subsidiary, ICreative, and we decided to take a look at an organization that had been using their invoice processing solution for quite some time. This was exactly what we were looking for and seemed very user-friendly. We were immediately convinced.”
E-Invoicing & supplier onboarding
Renewi had taken the first step toward digital invoice processing, but this was only the beginning. “Colleagues who entered the paper invoices into the system also scanned them. There was a scanner in a corner where everyone scanned their own invoices and then converted them into data files. But with the arrival of the invoice stream from the Netherlands, this process became too cumbersome. We even hired additional staff to scan and validate these invoices: we had four people on-site working full-time on this task.”
Renewi wanted to take it further: Together with 4CEE, we then wrote to all our suppliers, asking them to submit future invoices in PDF or XML format via administration-specific email addresses. With this approach, invoices would reach us already sorted, thereby reducing the amount of sorting work required.
The result was overwhelming: as a result of this project, we were already receiving 30 percent of our invoices ase-invoices.” At Renewi, however, 70 percent of invoices were still arriving on paper. Together with 4CEE, Hans Wolfs wanted to make a significant “digital leap” here as well. “With 10,000 suppliers each submitting invoices in their own way, this is a real challenge. Our OCR system took a long time to capture the various invoice templates, not to mention all the new templates from new suppliers. We then considered modifying the software, but that offered no guarantee that we would make significant progress or increase the recognition rate—which was below fifty percent—to ninety percent. In 2013, I spoke with a business associate who had encountered the same problem. He advised us to outsource our paper invoice processing.”
From 30 to 60 percent in no time
“Together with 4CEE, we wanted to increase the 30% of electronic invoices and reduce the remaining 70% within a year. With 4CEE’s help, that 30 percent has since grown to 60 percent. 4CEE’s e-invoicing platform offers suppliers every possible way to submit invoices, which we then receive as e-invoices.” While Renewi was once a paper-based organization, the company now operates 100% paperless.