Industry:
Finance & Insurance
Loomis Sayles was determined to bring efficiencies and cost savings to its accounts payable (AP) department
Loomis, Sayles & Company manages more than $130 billion in equity and fixed income assets for institutional and mutual fund clients. Their focus on return on investment (ROI), which has earned them the trust and respect of clients worldwide since 1926, has also been a critical factor in adopting a best-of-breed strategy for its procurement technology.
Loomis Sayles is committed to fostering the continual improvement of its people, performance, and processes. They identified invoice processing as an area where technology could be implemented to increase process efficiencies, deliver productivity gains and ensure improved spend visibility.
Of all the systems I evaluated, I felt the overall functionality of Basware AP Automation made it the best system, hands down.” Daniel Garuti, Vice President and Accounting Supervisor, Loomis, Sayles & Company
Key Takeways
38%
faster Invoice processing
85%
invoices paid within 10 days
40%
productivity gain for AP team
Loomis Sayles Challenges
Invoices were processed manually, which was time-consuming and inefficient. Further complicating matters, invoices were received at the company’s regional offices and then routed to headquarters in Boston.
Check request forms were then sent back into the field for approval and returned to Boston for central processing. Missing invoices and late payments were unintended consequences of this manual process.
Daniel Garuti, vice president and accounting supervisor of Loomis Sayles, was charged with finding ways to reduce costs, create efficiencies and gain visibility into the company’s accounts payable processes. Corporate executives wanted to promote more environmentally sustainable initiatives and reduce the number of paper-based invoices.
How Loomis increased invoice processing 38% faster with Basware
Garuti evaluated several automated purchase-to-pay technologies based on these goals and finally selected Basware’s AP Automation solution. Loomis Sayles implemented the core Basware AP Automation solution and the payment plans features that allowed them to manage the recurring payments for their real estate holdings and frequent consultancy invoices.
The implementation was so easy that it was practically plug-and-play. We were even able to send test invoices within three days of system configuration.” Daniel Garuti, Vice President and Accounting Supervisor, Loomis, Sayles & Company.
A scanning service was established to convert any paper invoices into digital. Once the invoices are captured electronically, the system collates and delivers the invoices with any supporting documents directly to the appropriate reviewers for online authorisation.
The Basware solution was then integrated with Loomis Sayles’ ERP(Lawson) to close the audit trail and provide complete spend visibility. Every invoice now has a complete audit trail that contains information on everything that happens, from when an invoice is received to when it is archived, a key requirement for Loomis Sayles compliance purposes.
Basware Analytics reporting capabilities, something that had originally impressed during the evaluation phase, have become vital in the delivery of month, quarter, and year-end accruals.
Basware saves us significant time and money. It also provides the accuracy, efficiencies, visibility, and control we need. We use Basware to monitor suppliers, look for opportunities to consolidate and capture early payment discounts.
Daniel Garuti, Vice President and Accounting Supervisor, Loomis, Sayles & Company
Results
Using Basware AP Automation, Loomis Sayles was able to achieve payback on their investment within 14 months.
Garuti conducted a formal ROI evaluation based on several factors: the company’s ability to maintain current FTE (full-time employees) while increasing its ability to process more invoices; to eliminate redundant processes; to reduce imaging costs; and to decrease shipping costs.
Invoice processing is now over a third faster than before, and 85% of invoices are paid within 7—10 days. The company has gained critical cost savings and re-assign circa 40% of the AP team’s time to more strategic priorities, such as asset management.
Duplicate payments are a thing of the past, as are data entry errors and lost or late payments. Using Basware Spend Plans, Loomis Sayles can automatically process corporate leases and consulting checks. This also guarantees that payments are accurate, on time, and pre-approved.
Finally, increased spend visibility has also allowed Loomis Sayles to consolidate invoices by 20%. Alongside that, the increased volume of e-invoices means Loomis Sayles has seen a substantial reduction in paper-based invoices, a key goal for the original investment decision.