SUCCESS STORY

QinetiQ Aims for Smarter
Vendor Invoice Processing
with OpenText
OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP ® Solutions Speeds UpProcessing, Facilitates Supplier Negotiations and Improves Reporting

QinetiQ Limited, experts in defence, aerospaceand security, employs more than 9,000 people
worldwide. QinetiQ scientists and engineers solve
some of the world’s most important problems, offeringhigh-end technical knowledge underpinned by world-classresearch and innovation.
With a turnover in excess of £1.3billion,
with the UK, US and Australia being homemarkets, QinetiQ is a trusted supplier tomore than 40 countries, providing a worldclass defence and security service.

Setting the selection criteria
and making the decision
Narrowing down the field to potential solutions
left just two main contenders: OpenText
Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions(VIM) and ReadSoft. All others were eliminatedon cost, lack of referenceability or poor
integration with SAP. One of the compelling
reasons for selecting the SAP OpenText
solution was that the support mechanisms
were already in place as QinetiQ were an
established SAP client. Added to this thatany updates to the solution, as they would
come from SAP themselves, would automatically be tested and accredited.

With thousands of complex projects,involving any number of a possible 20,000
plus vendors, managing the processes
around vendor invoices for the UK andEuropean operations is a time consuming
and complex challenge. In 2008, QinetiQ
outsourced this processing to Accenture,
India on a five year contract. Invoices werereceived at a central PO Box, scanned in
Milton Keynes in the UK, forwarded for
initial processing to a team in Prague before
finally being sent to the accounts payable “We selected the OpenText solution due to(AP) team in Bangalore. In Prague, invoices its superior integration with SAP, supportwould be uploaded to an in-house system ability and proven security. We had to know
and SAP, all of which took time, incurred that future software updates would notcosts, thus raising the cost of processing cause technical nor security issues for us”,of each invoice. QinetiQ took the decision said Jonathan Harris, Purchase to Pay Teamto bring back in-house the processing Lead, QinetiQ Limited.
of the circa. 65,000 supplier invoices The VIM solution would be responsible formatching electronic invoices to orders inreceived and processed every year.

EN T ER PR ISE I N FO R M AT I O N M A N AG E M EN T

INDUSTRY
Defence, Aerospace and Security

CUSTOMER
QinetiQ Limited

CHALLENGESnnnn

Bring purchase to pay processing back inhouse, fully integrated to SAPHighly sensitive defence, security andaerospace environment
Complex services-based invoices inaddition to product type invoices
Drive to improve supplier relationships,
including early settlement discounts

SOLUTIONSnn

SAP Invoice Management by OpenText (VIM)
SAP OCR Option for Invoice Managementby OpenText (ICC)

BENEFITSnnn

n

OpenText solution proven in SAPenvironments
Improved transparency, accuracy andreporting capabilities
Reduced processing times, enabling early
settlement discounts
Cost effective solution, including
deployment and operational costs, lower
cost per invoice

SUCCESS STORY
the SAP system, cross checking multiple
data points to ensure the invoice was validand then, subject to configurable rules,
releasing the invoice for payment. Thiswould be far quicker than the outsourced
solution, reducing the length of time taken
to pass invoices for payment.
In ad di tio n to th e V IM so lu tio n, OCR
Option for SAP Invoice Management (ICC)
was also selected and purchased. This
would allow physical paper invoices to bescanned, in house, and the scanned images
passed through the optical character
recognition (OCR) process provided by
ICC to enable automatic invoice upload,
data extraction and matching in VIM. Any
residual invoices that could not be accurately
completed with OCR would be queuedfor manual data entry and correction, still
far quicker than manual entry for all paper
invoices.

Implementation partnership,
aggressive project timelines
and invoice types
With both physical and electronic invoices
to be processed in the SAP environment,
implementing the solution would require
the specialist knowledge and skills of a suitably qualified SAP implementation partner.
QinetiQ selected Excelerated Sourcing, an
SAP and OpenText partner with extensive
experience in Source to Pay. Electronic
documents would be placed into Microsoft
SharePoint and the invoices automaticallypicked up by ICC. Invoice metadata once
extracted, would be passed to SAP VIM,
with the original document accessible
through both SAP and SharePoint.
“ We receive up to 30 0 invoices ever yworking day, many of which are complex,
services based invoices. This presents achallenge for any attempt at straight
through processing, with little or no humanintervention, but the OpenText solution
has so far impressed us with the results
it’s been capable of producing,” added
Jonathan Harris.
The project to bring supplier invoiceprocessing back in house was completed

in two, three month phases. The first “Bringing the operation back in houseaddressed product invoices, the easier of has allowed us to meet our compliancethe two invoice types to process. Over 70% drivers, as well as reduce the averageof product invoices were processed auto- cost to process an invoice. Opportunities
matically from day one, and that number to realise benefits from early settlement
has increased as the system has been fine discounts are really icing on the cake,tuned. The second phase addressed the having met all of our primary objectives”,
trickier, services invoices, with extensive added Jonathan Harris.
input from Excelerated Sourcing. The aim With greater clarity and accuracy of inforis to have at least 60% of these more diffi- mation being captured, searching andcult to handle invoices being processed reporting has also been improved. Alongautomatically with no human intervention.
with potential early settlement discounts,
benefitting QinetiQ and suppliers, thisfurther enhances supplier relationships as
queries can be dealt with more efficiently
and effectively.

“We selectedthe OpenText
solution dueto its superior
integration
with SAP,
supportabilityand provensecurity.”
JONATHAN HARRIS,
PURCHASE TO
PAY TEAM LEAD,
QINETIQ LIMITED

Benefits: early settlement
discounts, improved supplier
relationships, better reporting

As time passes and understanding growsof the capabilities of the system, QinetiQ
are constantly on the lookout for ways tocontinually improve their processes. Thisextends to more than just further reductions in the average cost of processing aninvoice, to full audit controls, automatic
monitoring and pickup of good received
notices that the system then processes,
matches to an order and invoice andsubject to the appropriate controls, sets
up a payment to the supplier, saving agreat deal of time. A report runs every
four hours, picking up any items that havebeen receipted, completely automatically.
Exception reports are also provided todetail items that remain that have not been
fully processed.

Continuous Improvement
and Future Innovation
QinetiQ, in addition to rolling out the early
settlement agreement with suppliers, arealso looking at other innovative areas toleverage the investments they’ve made to date.

“We’re constantly striving for excellence,
utilising technology to drive our operaWith the system live since April 2013, tions forward. For example, we’re looking
invoice processing times have been cut at eforms for the processing of exceptionalsufficiently to now open up the possibility of payments, reducing the paper trail andnegotiations with suppliers for early settle- delays that often ensue. The OpenText
ment discounts. This could potentially lead solution will be key to the future expansion
to savings on every invoice processed for of the solution”, added Jonathan Harris. nthe suppliers who opt in.

www.opentext.com n sales@opentext.com n 800 499 6544
Copyright ©2012-2013 Open Text Corporation OpenText is a trademark or registered trademark of Open Text SA and/or Open Text ULC. The list of trademarks is not exhaustive of other trademarks, registered trademarks, product names,company names, brands and service names mentioned herein are property of Open Text SA or other respective owners. All rights reserved. For more information, visit:http://www.opentext.com/2/global/site-copyright.html (11/2013)01544EN