Case Study

Computaleta

Visibility of Stock and Creditor Invoice Process Much Improved

Computaleta supply signage companies with vinyl and digital media throughout New Zealand. They are one of the largest companies of their type in the country, with 5 branches and an impressive 37 years of history behind them.

As a family-owned business, customer service and open communication are important values to Computaleta Management, with the speed of response when an order arrives being especially important.

Time Consuming. Complex Processes. Costly Errors.

Computaleta have a high volume of invoices and wanted to reduce the time involved in processing them.

Their process was slowed by the cost of stock as parts of the process had to wait for other parts to be completed. Inwards Good receipts were created in the warehouse but couldn’t be costed until the invoice came in. In turn, invoices couldn’t be entered until the stock had been receipted. This led to delays in getting stock available for sale and continual checking by the office staff to see if goods on an invoice had been received, using a considerable amount of time.

Additionally, invoices could sometimes be missed as there were no checks in place to make sure they had been processed. This information was difficult to get visibility around and could lead to invoices not being paid on time, meaning a loss of monthly rebates from suppliers offered for paying on time.

Staff found this stressful and did not have enough time to get to more productive tasks that were urgently needing to be completed.

“I love that I now have more time to put into more important parts of my job. I feel I am adding more value to my role because I’ve got more time to put into those things.” – Tracy, Accounts Administrator, Computaleta

Automation leads to Efficiencies

Computaleta’s Finance Manager, Adele Peterson was aware of data capture solutions that could automate Creditor Invoice processing, but had not seen one working.

Focus gave Adele a demonstration showing how Fetch reads the information on an invoice, checks the products against the Purchase Order, checks to see if they had been receipted and if they have, costs them and creates the creditor invoice in MYOB Exo. Invoice images are accessible from within EXO for viewing.

Fetch was deployed for Computaleta in February 2019. Within four weeks of go-live staff had settled into their new process and were enjoying significant efficiencies. The time to process invoices dropped by over 50%.

Focus configured Fetch so that invoices could be processed as they came in, regardless of whether they had been receipted by the warehouse staff or not. Because the invoices come in by email, they simply appear in the administration staff member’s Fetch station, are processed and if the physical goods have not arrived yet, they wait there until this has happened. The warehouse staff continue receipting as usual. Once the receipting and invoice have both been done, Fetch releases the invoice and carries out the costing at the same time.

“It’s nice to know everything is all matched and correct without having to think too hard about it before releasing the data into Exo. Fetch does the thinking for us and we can concentrate on other things” – Adele Peterson, Finance and Product Manager, Computaleta

Time Saving. Greater Visibility.

Because processing Creditor invoices is now so much faster, staff now have time to chase overdue accounts for payment which has improved the cashflow of the company.

Adele now has visibility of the stock movement and invoicing process at a push of a button. She is thrilled with this aspect of Fetch, which she reports as being even better than she expected it to be. She now has more control over stock movement as a result of this visibility and stock is available for sale substantially more quickly which is important as their ability to supply goods to their customers with minimal turnaround time is very important. Fetch has become an important tool for her in the management of the business.

Because of the marrying of invoices with their Inwards Goods Receipt, invoices are not being missed and the data within Exo is now more accurate. Exo is more up to date as invoices are processed more quickly.

A result of all invoices being filed digitally is that whenever an invoice is required to be looked up it is quickly located and viewed from within MYOB Exo – and the filing cupboard is now empty!

“Fetch has given me more visibility around stock, and freed up staff time and stress around paperwork. I would definitely recommend Fetch to other business owners” Adele Peterson, Finance and Product Manager, Computaleta

Adele Peterson
Computaleta
Finance and Product Manager
https://www.clgroup.co.nz