AP Automation Success: The Story Behind the Numbers
Seeing is believing.
We’ve all heard this maxim hundreds of times, but it rings especially true when it comes to accounts payable automation.
At Stampli, we’ve written a lot of content around the benefits of AP automation, the ROI your organization can expect, and even how to work with the management team on implementation.
While we certainly encourage you to read about the general benefits of automating your AP processes, there’s no better proof of the efficacy of automated accounts payable process than seeing what other organizations similar to yours have accomplished by implementing a best-in-class AP automation platform.
Keep reading for 10 case studies involving real Stampli customers to learn how about the problems they’ve solved, discover the benefits of accounts payable automation, and gain insight into their implementations and invoice management workflows.
Let’s jump into the real-world applications of AP automation within organizations in a range of different industries.
1. Purple Speeds Invoice Processing
Purple is an innovative company that designs and manufactures a range of comfort products including mattresses, pillows, and cushions using its patented Hyper-Elastic Polymer® material, which is designed to improve comfort.
Challenge and Solution
Purple originally encouraged its vendors to send their invoices to a specialized AP email inbox and had two AP team members slog through the invoices manually on a weekly pay run. This resulted in a huge backlog of unpaid invoices, and more importantly, there was no central system to manage everything-and many invoices were improperly documented.
Results
Upon implementing the Stampli AP automation platform, Purple was able to:
- Reduce invoice backlog by 50% within 3 months
- Eliminate duplicate invoice payments
- Make invoice approval times 63% faster
- Properly document 100% of invoices
- Return valuable time to overworked AP team
“With Stampli, we have reduced the time to process invoices from 8 days to 3 days. One of the areas in which we’ve saved the most time is in getting invoices into the system. The second area in which we’ve dramatically reduced time is in getting approvals.”
– Peter Taylor, Corporate Controller
Is your manufacturing company experiencing similar challenges to Purple before Stampli implementation? Find out more about how Stampli’s AP Automation solutions serve the manufacturing industry.
2. CTI Increases AP Productivity by 40%
CTI Clinical Trial and Consulting Services (CTI) is a privately held global contract research organization that delivers a complete spectrum of clinical trial and consulting services throughout the therapeutics development lifecycle, from concept to commercialization.
Challenge and Solution
CTI had recently implemented a new financial system to capture invoices and make payments electronically. However, despite this upgrade, its invoice approval process was still manual, and the rapid company growth absolutely buried the AP team and invoice approvers in paperwork.
Luckily, Stampli’s solution was flexible enough to fit into CTI’s existing AP processes – including integrating with Sage Intacct – while also enabling streamlined collaboration between AP team members and approvers throughout the company.
Results
With Stampli’s AP automation integration, CTI was able to:
- Process 500-600 invoices per month with a small AP team
- Switch to 100% paperless processing
- Boost accounts payable productivity by 40%
“Our CFO is happy to no longer go through mountains of paperwork to approve payments – now she can quickly view invoices and approve them all within Stampli.”
– Marty Budke, Director of Finance and Accounting
3. Renova Energy Reduces Invoice Processing Time by 50%
Renova Energy is an employee-owned company that delivers practical, sustainable solar energy production and battery storage to residential and commercial customers.
Challenge and Solution
During a period of growth, Renova upgraded its financial system to NetSuite. Unfortunately, the AP team was still manually processing more than 700 invoices a month and spending 80% of their time on manual data entry and tracking down approvals.
Implementing Stampli eliminated hundreds of hours of manually coding, verifying, and approving invoices. Thanks to Stampli’s seamless integration with Oracle NetSuite and two-way data sync, Renova’s payments are now processed accurately and automatically, all with a clear audit trail.
Results
Since adopting Stampli, Renova has seen:
- 50% time savings in accounts payable
- Increased on-time payments
- Enhanced collaboration
“A lot of times, accounting does not know who needs to be involved with an invoice. Stampli makes it easy for anyone to be involved.”
– Andrea Monteiro, Accounting Manager
If you have any questions about AP automation, set up a time to talk with one of our AP Heroes.
4. Techstars Reduces AP Processing Time by 75%
Techstars is a worldwide network and accelerator that helps startups and entrepreneurs succeed.
Challenge and Solution
Like many of the startups it serves, Techstars needed to scale, and fast. In this case, they needed a way to be able to handle an increased volume of invoices without adding overhead.
Stampli’s artificial intelligence helper, Billy the Bot, was able to learn Techstars’ patterns and increase their ability to onboard users and process invoices – without breaking the bank.
Results
With Stampli’s Billy bot, Techstars:
- Reduced AP process time by 75%
- Reduced user onboarding time from 20 minutes to 30 seconds
“It’s incredible how quickly the artificial intelligence assistant (Billy the Bot) learns our patterns! I also love the flexibility of the system, such as being able to add a note even after the bill has been pushed to Sage Intacct.
I’m just thrilled at the ease of use. Switching to Stampli was the best decision we made all year!”
– Teddi Patchett, Senior Accountant
Curious about Billy? Find out all about our friendly AP bot.
5. SIMA Eliminates Manual Invoice Processes
SIMA Corporation is a private real estate investment firm specializing in acquiring and managing real estate opportunities.
Challenge and Solution
SIMA was looking for an AP automation platform that would:
- Eliminate manual paperwork
- Integrate with Sage 100
With Stampli, SIMA found both and was able to streamline its entire invoice process including the digital storage and audit trail of invoices.
Results
Implementing Stampli allowed SIMA to:
- Create streamlined AP workflows
- Maintain invoice history and audit trail (including invoice images)
“On top of making AP much simpler, we’ve integrated Stampli with Sage 100 so that the AP record retains a link back to Stampli so we can see the original image and the entire history of every payable.”
– James Piper, Director of Operations
If you’re wondering whether Stampli is compatible with your accounting software, read more about our integrations.
6. REVOLVE Reduces Invoice Processing by 80%
REVOLVE is an e-commerce powerhouse and trendy women’s apparel retailer. As a trusted premium lifestyle brand and a go-to online source for discovery and inspiration, REVOLVE delivers an engaging customer experience from a vast yet curated offering totaling over 45,000 styles of apparel, footwear, accessories, and beauty products.
Challenge and Solution
Processing invoices was a tedious task that involved the entire AP team. This resulted in a lengthy, error-prone AP process. Upon implementing Stampli, REVOLVE was able to process the same amount of invoices with only a single AP team member. This gave REVOLVE’s AP team more headway to focus efforts on other areas.
Results
Stampli’s AP automation enabled REVOLVE to:
- Reduce invoice processing time by 80%
- Significantly improve collaboration within its AP department
“The task of processing invoices used to involve the whole department working manually, which took time and resulted in errors. Now, everything is completed in ⅕ of the time and is managed by one person.”
– Diana Tabatabai, International Project Manager
7. Spanish Fork City Transforms Invoice Processing
Spanish Fork is a community in central Utah that strives to offer its inhabitants a high quality of life by creating an optimal environment for working, recreating, and enjoying life.
Challenge and Solution
Spanish Fork City has worked for years to make sure it can accommodate growth, but until recently, a single person was charged with sending 1,200+ invoices per month to the right approvers. Spanish Fork City didn’t have an AP process to accommodate growth, and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the city’s finance director started looking for an AP solution to automate the process.
Results
Since finding Stampli, Spanish Fork has seen:
- A 2X reduction in the invoice lifecycle
- Automated expense allocation across departments
- 12X reduction in the time to get authorized invoices into Caselle
“Before Stampli, accounting would put invoices into approvers’ in-boxes at the beginning of the week, but usually didn’t have approval until the end of the following week. Now invoices are easily scanned and sent to Stampli on the day of receipt.“
– Kent Clark, Finance Director
Do you work in government and need a better invoice management solution? Talk to us about how we can help you put your constituency’s needs first by automating your AP processes.
8. MEC Gains Collaborative Invoice Management Environment
Midwest Environmental Control (MEC) is a nationally recognized environmental remediation and demolition contractor that has completed numerous difficult environmental projects for its clients.
Challenge and Solution
MEC wanted a tool that fit its collaborative culture that would also provide better visibility into its AP processes and timelines. With Stampli, the MEC AP team and approvers can have ‘conversations’ directly on top of individual invoices, allowing them to collaborate in context — as opposed to relying on forgotten email attachments and in-person conversations.
Results
Since choosing Stampli, MEC has:
- Implemented a collaborative invoice processing workflow
- Improved relationships with its vendors
- Increased visibility into accounts payable
“The increased visibility has improved our relationships with vendors and between our team members internally. At MEC, we believe that a collaborative environment is a key to success, and Stampli has helped us to achieve this with our invoices as well.”
– Braulio Rincon, Human Resources
9. LTC Consulting Gains a Competitive Edge
LTC Consulting provides Skilled Nursing Facilities with a complete suite of critical finance, billing, and business office management services.
Challenge and Solution
Because of the nature of its business, LTC was looking for a way to give multiple clients a smooth and cohesive AP process that was also uniform — all contained within a single tool. With Stampli, LTC found exactly what they were looking for and didn’t have to invest in an array of software programs to suit their multiple clients.
Results
Stampli helped LTC Consulting to offer their clients better services by:
- Successfully integrating Sage Intacct
- Using analytics to better understand their clients’ needs
“The integration with Sage Intacct was so easy, and the system is very user-friendly which is important because we work with so many people. There are so many people that touch each invoice during the process, and each one of them is being positively affected with Stampli.”
– Sara Rockove, Senior Finance Manager
Learn more about how Stampli’s Reports can help you optimize your AP processes, improve cash flow, and understand your clients.
10. Atlantic Coast Brands Gains Full Control of Invoice Process
Atlantic Coast Brands (ACB) creates iconic beauty brands by developing scientifically advanced, clinically-tested products designed to deliver real results for its more than 10 million customers worldwide.
Challenge and Solution
ACB was seeking an AP software solution to improve control and accountability across its procure-to-pay processes. With Stampli, ACB gained the control it needed to manage its invoice processing from start to finish.
Results
By implementing Stampli, ACB benefited from:
- Improved collaboration with other departments
- Invoices taking a lot less time to review and approve
- Dashboards that provide deeper insight into delays and bottlenecks
“Stampli has helped us collaborate with other departments for approving invoices and then corresponding with questions regarding discrepancies. It has improved our control over who has responsibility and ownership of the invoice throughout the approvals process.”
– Nicholas Leiva, Accountant
Reading about how everyone else solved their AP issues is one thing, but wouldn’t you like to know how Stampli can help you overcome your business’s unique AP challenges?
Schedule a no-commitment, free demo with one of our AP Heroes today. Talk to us.
You’ll soon see why the businesses in the 10 success stories above chose Stampli:
- Rated #1 in Customer Satisfaction
- Fastest Implementation Time in Industry
- Unlimited Support During Set-Up & Beyond
As we’ve established, seeing is believing.
So see for yourself.
