Faisal R. Bajwa, group controller manager at Khan’s SUPA IGA Supermarket Group faced an ongoing issue of submitting and approving invoices between store locations and its head office as it required a substantial investment in resources. Also, collating weekly documents and their storage was a tedious manual process that lacked transparency and represented a significant cost per store.
Faisal, reached out to DataDevice Pty, a software house, with these issues.
The software house appointed their business analyst to gain an in-depth knowledge of the supermarkets current as is process and create scope of works. The study revealed that Laserfiche was the right solution to resolve the issues. Having expertise and experience in Laserfiche products, DataDevice demonstrated Laserfiche solution to Khan’s SUPA IGA Supermarket Group and later helped carry out user acceptance testing.
On acceptance, DataDevice began implementation of Laserfiche at Khan’s SUPA IGA Supermarket Group, which currently operates 11 supermarket locations across NSW, Australia, providing a wide range of products and value-added services at each location and staffing over 800 people across all stores. Laserfiche products, were used to implement an automated solution for invoice processing, reconciling the invoices by matching them with the appropriate statements, storage of documents and generating reports in order to optimize company resources and increase transparency. DataDevice imparted the required training to IGA Khan’s employees to quickly get them started using Laserfiche solution.
Bajwa is of the opinion that using Laserfiche, important documents are now quickly uploaded and delivered to the head office, significantly reducing labor costs and paperwork, and allowing them to make prompt decisions and improve key business relationships.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Khan’s SUPA IGA’s decision to implement Laserfiche was instrumental in enabling the company to manage a 600% increase in work volume – compared to the same period last year — with the same amount of staff in a highly efficient and cost effective manner.
But, what exactly was involved in this implementation?
Implemented invoice collection, approval and storage workflow, saving time and money
Due to lack of digital document and records management system, it took a 10 hour drive to deliver paper invoices from remote store branches to the Head office, on a regular basis. On arrival, the paper invoices had to be sorted and submitted for review and approval to different members of the finance team. These challenges represented a huge investment in time and company resources, and also resulted in a lack of transparency. Thus the manual invoice approval system was inefficient and tedious.
DataDevice assisted Khan’s SUPA IGA to recognize an opportunity for digitally transforming the creditor invoice approval process, and to decide to implement Laserfiche enterprise content management (ECM) system for its expansive document storage and workflow modelling capabilities.
The ability to upload and store invoices in one central location has helped the finance team and auditors to easily search and instantly access invoices and related information.
Later, Bajwa said that Laserfiche could not only hold documents, but the workflow modelling tool and the ability to use data and scripting to generate reports, as demonstrated by DataDevice, was a huge advantage.
Implemented digitisation of store inventory, reducing the time spent in stock-taking and helped control purchases
With fully digitised and automated invoice approval process, after the finance manager performs a general review of received invoices, they are scanned into the Laserfiche repository. A Laserfiche Workflow completes the invoice approval process and exports to a third-party accounting program called Attache.
As all invoices are processed in real time as they arrive at each store location, Khan’s SUPA IGA now has a more accurate view of products purchased and their quantity. This has allowed the organization to reduce the frequency of in-store inventory, and has resolved issues of over-purchasing.
Implemented reporting feature of Laserfiche rendering greater visibility and control of company finances and resources
Laserfiche analytics has many reporting features like estimating time to complete future tasks, Identifying inefficiencies and hidden opportunities, profit and loss (P&L) reports and many others. These features have served the organization to have better control over company finances, to streamline resource allocation and to control in-store operations.
Implemented employee safety measures during the COVID-19 outbreak, avoiding loss of work time due to sickness
The company’s decision to digitise documents and implement touchless invoice approval process and statement matching has improved occupational health and safety standards during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since all documents, invoices and statements are digitised, there is no need to handle and exchange paper documents. All processes are carried out with zero physical contact.
In addition to achieving business continuity, this has arrested the spread of the virus, and allowed the employees to work from home, helping the community at large.
Implemented Laserfiche features helping save one full-time equivalent (FTE) and AU$280,000, per year, in other costs
Khan’s SUPA IGA purchases lot many products from huge product distribution companies like Metcash and has to reconcile the invoices by matching them with the appropriate statements or goods receipts. This, apart from invoice approval and managing documents physically, represents a huge workload. Laserfiche has helped address this by automating the processes, saving employees up to four days of efforts. Apart from saving time and increasing transparency, it has reduced costs, helping the company save AU$280,000.
As for the time, Khan’s SUPA IGA Supermarket Group uses this saved time to improve supplier relationship and offer better service to customers. As for the cost, the company has saved one FTE and additional AU $280,000. As for the health and safety of Khan’s employees, and the communities they serve, the benefit of the implementation is priceless.
For more information and to book a demo of this solution, Contact us at +61 (02) 8377 6448