Schroders Oracle Fusion ERP Cloud Invoice Automation Case Study

The Company

schroders logo

Schroders is an investment management company, working across public and private markets, investing on behalf of savers and investors globally. They have 5750 employees operating from 37 countries across the world. Clients include individuals who invest directly and those who invest through businesses or financial advisers. They also serve the investment needs of institutions like insurance companies, pension funds and charities.

For more information on Schroders please go to www.schroders.com

The Brief

Schroders had a previous invoicing system that no longer met their business needs and had also decided to upgrade their on-premise ERP from Oracle E-Business Suite to Oracle ERP Cloud (Fusion) globally. In implementing the new Finance system, Schroders were also changing the way they did procurement from an external system to using Oracle Procurement and the raising of Purchase Orders. This brought about the need to look for a new invoice processing solution that could meet their needs in terms of the geographical spread, flexibility and exception-handling requirements to work across many countries, each with their own nuances and processes.

Schroders required a global solution that validated invoices in accordance with complex localised processes and systems. This would create efficiency by utilising an enhanced streamlined setup that would be easy to adopt and improve the speed and effectiveness of invoice processing across the entire company.

Arcivate, with the Mi Invoices solution, was judged to be the best fit for Schroders and scored the highest on their ‘golden criteria’ and was selected in 2019.

For more information on Mi Invoices download the

What Schroders Wanted

The requirements were expansive, but in that brief, they included several ‘must-haves’

list icon A system that would seamlessly integrate with Oracle ERP Cloud (Fusion)

list icon High-performance data extraction and OCR recognition with 100+ language capability

list icon A global solution (as Schroders operates in 70 locations) working across many different languages, data and regulatory requirements

list icon Flexible solution to handle the existing and future requirements for invoice matching against the purchase order

list icon Integration, full support and flexibility to work with their email system and with multiple inbound mailboxes

list icon Process, segregate and route the inbound supplier invoices from multiple countries, business units and legal entities

list icon Provide an intuitive, adaptable and single-screen web-based interface

list icon Configurable cloud-based solution that never became outdated

list icon Dramatically Improve efficiencies by speeding up invoice processing

list icon Flexible enough to cope with internal nuances across departments, entities and countries

The Benefits that Mi Invoices Brings to Schroders

One of the key original ‘wins’ for Schroders is that they were able to centralise their UK and European cash reconciliation functions into a service centre hub in London and operational hub in Luxemburg – giving them a single central point for queries rather than queries being spread out to 5 different teams across the business.

Recently, they have continued to consolidate further by creating a single centralised hub outside of London, in Horsham to combine both London and Luxemburg. Mi Invoices has and continues to play a key part in the success of this transformation at Schroders.

list icon The system, both previously and now has brought efficiencies and cost savings enabling them to stop localised processes and bring in best practices to invoice processing.

list icon They have now standardised business processes which has provided a better focus on their metrics and KPIs giving them greater information on what people are doing and how quickly.

list icon Schroders users are delighted with the look and feel of the system and how it sits integrated with Oracle ERP Cloud – “Mi Invoices is really intuitive and feels like you’re staying in the same system throughout the process.”

Though they have been able to consolidate processes across the business, the solution also has the flexibility to be configured to incorporate specific requirements to meet local regulation and compliance. Also, rule setting capability on dependents – for example they can ensure that Bermuda invoices always point to the correct entity and with the US date format and currency.

Other additional benefits have included support for localised payment formats such as orange slips in Switzerland. Since the initial go-live QR codes have replaced orange slip and Arcivate have maintained Mi Invoices to be compliant through their quarterly releases that include new features and capabilities. This prevents the need to undertake major upgrades.

Schroders and Arcivate haven’t finished there as we continue to apply best practices together working in partnership to create a world class shared service centre utilising Mi invoices.

“Mi invoices is so easy to use and is a stable and efficient solution to process our invoices. For me, the approach the Arcivate team takes to find a solution to a challenge is one of their best attributes as they show a genuine desire to help you improve processes and efficiencies so that best practice is continually achieved. I would 100% recommend you speak to them to see how they can improve your business.”

Beverley Doyle,

Head of Accounts Payable

The Big Win – No PO No Pay

Schroders initially went live in 4 targeted countries in 2020 in accordance with their ERP rollout. A year after implementing Mi Invoices, Schroders moved to a ‘No PO No Pay’ policy. Due to buy-in from the teams and adopting a specific business process that was available within Mi Invoices the process went smoothly. As a result of this, they wished they’d done it sooner. This was all down to the support from the internal teams, the Arcivate team and the flexibility of the system and the compliance of their suppliers of course. It’s a great example of how this move can be done successfully.

The Mi Invoices solution not only helped gain the support of the internal AP Team at Schroders but also the suppliers. If an invoice is submitted without a PO number, Mi Invoices let them via email send a link, for them to directly input a PO number into a secure form. Then when they submit this back the system will subsequently auto-update to enable the invoice to progress for payment. They also use it to great effect internally as they can send links for internal stakeholders to raise PO numbers and/or deal with issues or queries.

In moving to a ‘No PO No Pay’ policy, they received very little pushback from suppliers or from business users and this has improved the overall invoice processing and it has obtained big improvements in speed and efficiency. With 91% of all invoices now being paid inside 30 days, from 80% previously and the average processing time reduced from just under 10 days to less than 3 days, making a saving of greater than a 300%. The business now has far greater visibility of the complete purchasing/invoicing process and can manage its Procure to Pay with a greater level of functionality and flexibility and this is in part thanks to Mi Invoices.

Schroders tell us that Mi Invoices is easy to use, easy to understand and integrates well with Oracle and their email system. They can pick up invoices simply and easily from their inbox to process and can communicate to other business users within the application, irrespective of whether the business user has an account in Mi Invoices or not.

Mi Invoices has “ticked every box” and we have taken them to a new level of control and transparency.

The Arcivate Difference

At Arcivate we strive to create the strongest of partnership relationships with our users of Mi Invoices and at Schroders, I believe we have achieved this. But that doesn’t mean we don’t continue to try and improve and instil best practices and advice to hopefully keep their invoice processing at the highest efficiency and standard.

To ensure that we transitioned from testing to go live, Arcivate provided a full day’s training three months before our go-live date. This enabled the team to go through various scenarios and benefit from the knowledge of the Mi Invoices system and how best to process invoices. This focused on aspects the client had highlighted as potentially problematic. We took a closer look at the best way to route invoices between teams. Some teams within the organisation felt uncomfortable with the main process so we looked at re-routing to accommodate them, allowing them to operate mini queues of their own and giving them internal control of their own invoices.

Arcivate were delighted to show the flexibility of the system, which meant Schroders could implement every validation point they required.

Some of the best feedback we receive from clients is that we listen to their needs and focus on finding solutions to challenges to get the required outputs. We know what is achievable and what isn’t, and you’ll always get the answers you need.

And this is very much the case with Schroders.

“We implement a lot of systems and with most, you probably obtain about 75% of what they say you’re going to get. With Arcivate we feel we have everything covered. They clearly know the system inside out and always respond to queries promptly. With bigger organisations, you can feel like you’re one of many, but with Arcivate, you always have a direct line to support. Their complete understanding of their system makes a huge difference to our business.”

Clare Dixon

Head of Cash & Cost Operations

Schroders

Mi Invoices Automated Invoice Processing for Oracle ERP Cloud and E-Business Suite

For more information

If you are looking for an Oracle Invoice Automation partner who can help you with your Accounts Payable processes, fill in the form below or give us a call.

Schroders Case Study