Essex County Councilexpects to cut
its annual budget by £500,000 a year using ane-invoicing systemdeveloped for the
public sector and its suppliers.
The system, which has been deployed in every department of the
council, will cut costs by automating the invoicing and payment
process, which will free up staff for redeployment.
"The council was looking to make big efficiency savings because
of budget pressures, and electronic invoicing had huge potential
for achieving that the streamlining processes," said Nicole
Edbrooke, purchase to pay manager at Essex County Council.
The council plans to move to the automated system in phases,
starting with its top 100 suppliers, which account for 80% of the
more than 65,000 invoices received each year.
"As each new supplier comes on board, we will reduce the budget
of departments, which will have less paper to process," said
Edbrooke.
Technology supplier EGS developed the web-based system in
partnership with a number of local authority customers, including
Essex County Council, to enable the secure exchange of invoices,
especially for public sector organisations.
"Suppliers of all sizes will be able to switch to the
e-invoicing system because all that is needed to access it is a web
browser and an internet connection," said Edbrooke.
For larger suppliers, the e-invoicing system has been designed
to integrate with back end enterprise resource planning and
financial management systems such as Oracle and SAP.
The council, which was already using an e-procurement system
from EGS, decided to extend the relationship after failing to find
any suitable e-invoicing systems from any other suppliers.