Formed in 2007, United Asphalt is a leading independent provider of high quality asphalt, macadam and specialist surfacing products used in a wide range of construction, maintenance and domestic applications. The company operates two asphalt manufacturing plants at Theale, Berkshire and Croydon, Surrey serving customers throughout London and the South East.
The Challenge
United Asphalt wanted to improve the efficiency of its accounting operations by reducing the cost of producing and despatching invoices, a process that was already outsourced, in readiness for the future adoption of e-billing. With more than 2000 invoices being produced each month, it also wanted to ensure that they were despatched on time. The company also wanted to streamline the way that proof of delivery notes (PODs) were handled and stored.
The Solution
After evaluating various solutions, United Asphalt asked e-docs UK to deploy a solution that would speed up the production and despatch of invoices, improve the handling of PODs and provide online access to all stored documentation.
Invoice data is received electronically on a daily basis via secure FTP transmission and uploaded to e-docs UK’s OneViewDM servers giving users secure, instant access to documents from any location around the clock using standard web browsers. It also enables United Asphalt to comply with all regulatory requirements relating to the tracking and storage of corporate data. Invoices are automatically sorted using address or account details to consolidate the number of envelopes required for daily despatch. Royal Mail approved machine-readable fonts are used to speed up the postal delivery process and take advantage of all available mailing discounts and a comprehensive audit report is emailed to United Asphalt with each run.
According to Lisa Search, Finance Director at United Asphalt: “e-docs UK has provided us with an cost-effective solution that enables our credit control operations to run more efficiently and provides a more accurate indication as to the current state of the business. As well as reducing the cost of producing and despatching invoices by more than 50%, it has helped to speed up the dispute resolution process and reduce debtor days.”
PODs are received from United Asphalt’s head office in Theale on a weekly basis for scanning and uploading to the OneViewDM servers within 48 hours. Every document is indexed using multiple criteria including supplier name, PO number, date and delivery point, to speed up the search and retrieval process and enable significant time savings to be achieved.
“We have been impressed by the way that e-docs UK took the time to really understand what we were trying to achieve and has provided us with a solution that meets all our requirements,” continued Lisa Search. “We are currently evaluating the feasibility of extending online access to suppliers which will deliver further benefits to the business.”
