How Newsquest upgraded to Purchase to Pay and expense processing to gain financial visibility, control and compliance
Digital procurement transformation not only creates savings and optimises process, it brings innovation and competitive advantage. Fast advancing Purchase to Pay technology is making all this possible but many mid-market firms have still not started their digital procurement transformation journey.
Newsquest, one of the largest regional news publishers in the UK, is one mid-market company that has been successfully embracing digital procurement. Take this opportunity to discover their key drivers and benefits achieved as well as recommendations for your own procurement transformation.
Upgrading the procurement function
One of the first priorities Newsquest identified was to upgrade their procurement function. The aim was to support the organisation’s end-to-end Purchase to Pay and expense processing, and overcome some of their most outstanding challenges, including high costs, financial non-compliance, inefficient financial processes, lack of visibility and control over spend.
As well as the need to upgrade their legacy system, their key drivers for investing in a spend management system were to drive efficiencies around invoice processing and expenses management, improve purchase order controls and provide better category and supplier management tools.
Using KPIs to determine Newsquest’s transformation success
One of the key success factors was gaining purchase order compliance. With constantly changing news distribution requirements, Newsquest has to make fast commercial decisions, resulting in purchase orders not always being raised. But control is now much easier with Coupa’s insight tools leveraging AI-powered prescriptions.
Invoice processing efficiency was also a key indicator. Newsquest moved as many suppliers as it could onto the Coupa Supplier Portal. Some suppliers utilised other options such as cXML or provided a decent quality digital PDF that integrates with Coupa. Others chose to use Supplier Actionable Notification to receive the PO via an email which they could simply click on to send it back as an invoice.
Although currently less of an issue in the present climate of remote working, Newsquest has gained valuable insight and visibility into staff expenses. A digital app works on the person’s mobile so they can expense straightaway and can be easily tracked and monitored.
Newsquest is now using Coupa’s insights and reports to measure any savings that are being delivered.
Newsquest 4 top tips before starting your procurement transformation
- Get alignment from stakeholders at the outset of the project, so that you can more easily engage with them during the user acceptance stage.
- Get your ERP up to date before you commence your procurement project and find out the best way to connect your ERP with Coupa
- Ensure your supplier database is as up to date as possible. Cull it where possible and make hard decisions on which suppliers to migrate.
- Make it easy for your suppliers to move onto the Coupa Supplier Portal. Use hand holding, webinars and work through other options to help them transition and log in.
You can read the full Newsquest case study here
How Newsquest upgraded to Purchase to Pay and expense processing to gain financial visibility, control and compliance
Digital procurement transformation not only creates savings and optimises process, it brings innovation and competitive advantage. Fast advancing Purchase to Pay technology is making all this possible but many mid-market firms have still not started their digital procurement transformation journey.
Newsquest, one of the largest regional news publishers in the UK, is one mid-market company that has been successfully embracing digital procurement. Take this opportunity to discover their key drivers and benefits achieved as well as recommendations for your own procurement transformation.
Upgrading the procurement function
One of the first priorities Newsquest identified was to upgrade their procurement function. The aim was to support the organisation’s end-to-end Purchase to Pay and expense processing, and overcome some of their most outstanding challenges, including high costs, financial non-compliance, inefficient financial processes, lack of visibility and control over spend.
As well as the need to upgrade their legacy system, their key drivers for investing in a spend management system were to drive efficiencies around invoice processing and expenses management, improve purchase order controls and provide better category and supplier management tools.
Using KPIs to determine Newsquest’s transformation success
One of the key success factors was gaining purchase order compliance. With constantly changing news distribution requirements, Newsquest has to make fast commercial decisions, resulting in purchase orders not always being raised. But control is now much easier with Coupa’s insight tools leveraging AI-powered prescriptions.
Invoice processing efficiency was also a key indicator. Newsquest moved as many suppliers as it could onto the Coupa Supplier Portal. Some suppliers utilised other options such as cXML or provided a decent quality digital PDF that integrates with Coupa. Others chose to use Supplier Actionable Notification to receive the PO via an email which they could simply click on to send it back as an invoice.
Although currently less of an issue in the present climate of remote working, Newsquest has gained valuable insight and visibility into staff expenses. A digital app works on the person’s mobile so they can expense straightaway and can be easily tracked and monitored.
Newsquest is now using Coupa’s insights and reports to measure any savings that are being delivered.
Newsquest 4 top tips before starting your procurement transformation
You can read the full Newsquest case study here