Her Majesty's Prison Service (HMPS)has adopted an automated invoice processing system to slash
costs.
HMPS went to Brainware for its accounts payable A/P-distiller.
The HMPS Shared Service Centre in Newport was created in 2005 to
handle finance, HR, and procurement activities for the prison
system.
Shared Service managers will apply Brainware technology for
OCR (optical character recognition) and extraction of line-item
data from up to 3,000 invoices received daily from HMPS' diverse
supplier base.
To achieve maximum efficiency in its accounts payable processes,
HMPS is co-ordinating its implementation of A/P-distiller with
improvements in its overall invoice handling, removing procedural
obstacles to invoice approval and payment.
A/P-distiller will augment these improved processes through
high-volume line-item extraction and verification, automating the
matching of invoice data against purchase orders.
Scheduled for production use by year's end, the AP system is
expected to generate per-annum savings of around £250,000 by
December 2008, and double that amount as the system is applied to
other government departments.
"To automate invoice payments throughout the HMPS system, we
needed a product with an OCR capability to handle huge variations
in paper-based invoices, and which could accurately extract and
export needed data into our
Oracle ERP system," said Steve Hodgson, HMPS head of shared
services.