Coupa Delivers Good News for UK Publishing Group

About the Client

Newsquest Media Group is one of the largest regional news publishers in the UK, with a turnover of nearly £200m, a portfolio of more than 165 news brands, and more than 40 online and print magazines.

Challenges

Newsquest had a Purchase to Pay (P2P) system which was nearing end of life. The business was looking for a new, “best in class” and cost-effective replacement, that would provide greater visibility of the purchase approval process.

Following a robust market review and tender process, Newsquest selected Coupa as the P2P and expenses platform, alongside Xoomworks as the implementation partner. Coupa represented value for money by leveraging a competitive contract with Newsquests parent company, and Xoomworks’ track record of successful implementations, its UK presence and ability to spin up the necessary resources quickly were major factors in the decision.

The Solution

Following a detailed scoping exercise, a blended project team with Xoomworks and Newsquest resources was established, sponsored by the Chief Financial Officer and Regional Finance Director. Key business users, including financial controllers, accounts payable clerks, finance systems managers and buyers around the business, carried out the User Acceptance Testing. Their role was vital to ensure audit requirements were satisfied.

The project initially focused on efficient requisition and purchase order processing, including automated invoice matching and integration with the ERP system.

Supplier data was cleansed, with dormant suppliers excluded from the data migration. PO processing email addresses were requested from suppliers, in an attempt to maximise the benefit of Coupa’s electronic PO facilities

Key Benefits

The solution is now fully operational, supporting end to end P2P and expense processing.

• Robust process: enhanced control and visibility of spend, before orders are placed.
• Strengthened relationships: Relationships with preferred suppliers are stronger, with ‘punch out’ buying options in place for seven key suppliers.
• Visibility over KPI’s
• Enhanced expense process: The management of expenses has been transformed.
• Simplified approval process: Newsquest used the Coupa implementation as an opportunity to simplify and rationalise approval financial thresholds, from up to 15 levels down to just four.
• Accounting accuracy improved: Automated coding of spend is now happening at the requisition and PO stage, and is carried through to invoice processing and payments.

“We really appreciated Xoomworks’ deep technical knowledge and its strong project management skills. They pushed us to prepare properly for the implementation, ensuring we started using Coupa with a clean and rich set of supplier data.”

Jason Baldaro, Group Purchasing Manager, Newsquest.

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