Tungsten TotalAgility processes 500 received invoices per day, prevents unnecessary errors and understands company processes.
It does not matter if the invoice, technical ID or penalty for bad parking comes by e-mail or in an envelope. For LeasePlan, we have prepared a platform that quickly processes the document, extracts data and transfers it to DMS, SAP and other systems. Thus, managers have an overview of the circulation of documents in the company, employees are relieved of monotonous work, and the payment of invoices is not scrubbed due to unnecessary errors.
Every working day, hundreds of documents come to LeasePlan from car dealers, gas stations, repair shops, insurance companies or tow trucks. Classic invoices dominate, but LeasePlan is constantly renewing its fleet, so it also processes 20-40 new technical passes per day. Approximately 80% of the documents go electronically in PDF format, the rest are on paper.
Previously, LeasePlan employees had to register each document, rewrite the data into a form that suits the DMS or accounting system, send an invoice for approval, and then cash it.
They used the older IBM Lotus Notes application to do this, but:
“We are gradually increasing the number of cars in the offer and the number of fleets, we communicate with customers online and generally work on the digitization of the company. That's why we decided to automate routine operations,” explains the context of the joint project Aleš Radoměřský, ICT Director of LeasePlan.
For LeasePlan ICT Director Aleš Radoměřský, when choosing a contractor, it was crucial that he already had experience with a similar project.
“Process automation is, in short, the conversion of paper processes into zeros and ones. It sounds simple, but in practice it is essential that for such a project we understand correctly from the beginning what documents the client works with, what systems he uses and how the document approval process is set up. At LeasePlan, we had to take into account a lot of variables when creating a business case, but we succeeded. We prepared a project that really moved the client,” adds our Sales Director David Večeřa.
“In the end, the design of a solution with a learning mechanism decided to choose InfoMaticu. We found it interesting that in the software we set up the processing of one type of invoice, and he himself deduces the rules for processing another type of document,” describes Aleš Radoměřský.
We discussed and together with LeasePlan defined the objectives of the project:
We have mapped in detail the types of accepted documents and the approval process of LeasePlan. Here are a few technical analysis outputs that were important for implementation:
Since we came out of the Automatica DX tool, the implementation of the solution was faster than if we built everything from scratch — we focused especially on the correct configuration of approval levels so that ADX matches LeasePlan's established processes.
The development of connectors took the longest time, and the key was to set up communication with systems and databases on DB2 architecture — we solved this in cooperation with LeasePlan's IT department.
We subjected the finished solution to user testing — we verified that nothing is missing or missing in the system compared to the input. “I think testing the system properly is key and I recommend setting aside enough time for it. Employee time is not free, but starting the system is then easier,” advises Aleš Radoměřský.
Before testing, we trained key LeasePlan employees. One day we focused on the future admin system, two days we introduced the new invoice processing system to users.
For about a month, the old and new systems ran concurrently — for a smooth startup, we let some processes run in the original solution. Then LeasePlan switched to a new system in which it processes all incoming invoices and technical passes.
ADX is connected to corporate systems, but employees control the invoice processing agenda from a single interface, which is also in Czech.
LeasePlan managers have gained a better overview of document flow — in a few clicks they can see if the invoice is already approved or waiting for comment. In addition, all the history of work with the relevant document is stored in the DMS system.
In a working day, the system processes around 500 pages of documents. Fundamentally, it accelerated our work. We were pleasantly surprised by the decrease in error rate. Data is transcribed by algorithms and we don't have to manually correct invoices.
— Aleš Radoměřský
The technician comes to LeasePlan at the same time as the invoice for the new vehicle. The technical certificate has different dimensions than the classic documents, but we can still digitize the document and read the data from it. After saving them, employees can search the DMS system by vehicle identification code (VIN), for example.
Automatica DX has a learning mechanism — it can deduce from the parameter settings for processing a certain type of document how to set parameters for another type of document. Therefore, if LeasePlan decides to process a new type of invoice, the system will cope with the correct settings and data recalculation.
We have created a search tool that allows you to verify the status of an invoice. Thanks to it, the user will know if the document is still pending approval, has been approved, rejected, or completely deleted from the system.
The scalability of the solution has been important to LeasePlan since the beginning of the project. After the smooth deployment of the system in the Czech Republic, we received the green light from the client and prepared an extension for the Slovak part of the company.
Approval processes and types of invoices processed did not differ from the Czech Republic. The biggest difference was the different format of the large technical pass.
“We did automatic invoice processing for Slovakia during covid. At the beginning I was worried about how it would be done remotely, but it turned out that INFOMATIC does its job very well. I would like to highlight in this context the project management, which made everything on time and under control,” concludes Aleš Radoměřský.
After deploying both systems, we provide maintenance and system development consultations for LeasePlan, which is primarily handled by internal developers — working to add a new agenda and develop a learning mechanism.
We will be happy to discuss details with you — about our Automatica DX solution, about Kofax TotalAgility® platform or about other ways to more efficiently process corporate documents.
