Hull College is to automate its purchase invoice
approval process to eliminate lost documents and speed up and
simplify the process.
The college is rolling out
document management
software and imaging technology from
Version One to handle the 30,000 purchase invoices it receives
on average each year.
"With hundreds of authorisers based at 10 college locations and
with many also working from home, the approval process is very
complex," said Richard Hudson, procurement manager at Hull
College.
He said automating the process would make it virtually
impossible to lose invoices and enable the finance team to know
exactly where invoices are in the approval chain.
The automation system provides for each invoice arriving at Hull
College to be scanned and stored centrally in an archive.
The authorisation software will automatically notify the
relevant people that there is an invoice for their attention. The
invoice can be viewed using a standard web browser and forwarded
for payment or further investigation.
Hudson said the system will "dramatically" streamline purchase
invoice approval and reduce paper and distribution costs.
After the initial implementation, Hull College plans to roll out
the document management and authorisation system to other areas of
the finance department as well as expanding it to include the
management and storage of non-financial documents.