Hughes Meats Case Study
Easy Switch To E-Invoicing For NHS Supplier
Hughes Meats supply quality meat and meat products throughout North Wales, Mid Wales and the North West of England. Established in 1974 by Geraint Hughes, the current Managing Director, they now employ forty people in a state of the art food processing facility based in North Wales. Their ability to supply accurate deliveries of quality meats to major customers like the North West Wales NHS Trust places great emphasis on the smooth processing of orders, invoices and payments.
Acting on Initiatives
Through their association with key customers like the North West Wales NHS Trust, Hughes Meats are familiar with Government and Local Health Authority initiatives. In 2004 they piloted 'Food for Thought' with the Trust. This was a Welsh Assembly Food Procurement Initiative for sourcing local produce for hospitals. Although this had gone well, Hughes Meats were a little reluctant to take on another initiative when approached by the Trust to make the switch to e-invoicing.
Mr Phil Jones, Company Accountant at Hughes Meats said, "The Trust informed us that they wanted to migrate their food suppliers to electronic invoicing and needed us on board. We were worried that this would take time and disrupt daily businesses. We were also concerned about implementation costs. However, once we learned the benefits it could offer us for just a small annual fee, we were willing to give it a try."
Simple Adoption for Suppliers
Getting set-up with e-invoicing proved to be a painless process for Hughes Meats. Once they received the Accountis Supplier Adoption Pack from the Trust all they had to do was follow a simple sign up process. Accountis then worked closely with Hughes Meats to prepare for e-invoicing. Accountis took a sample invoice from their existing Sage Line 50 system and mapped it to the Accountis format. The Accountis ebPrinter® was then installed on their PC which enabled Hughes Meats to automatically send secure e-invoices directly to the NHS from Sage.
How The System Works
Receiving E-Purchase Orders from the Trust
As well as being straightforward to set-up the system has also proved extremely easy to use. Instead of receiving paper purchase orders from the Trust, the orders are now sent electronically to Hughes Meats via the Accountis system. Notified by email of any new purchase order, Hughes Meats simply login to the secure Trust Supplier Portal to securely view, query or approve the purchase orders online. The purchase order data can be downloaded as a CSV file and there is an option to print hard copies of the order. This is beneficial to Hughes Meats who need to send purchase orders to the shop floor to be made up.
Sending E-Invoices to the Trust
When ready to bill for the order, Hughes Meats simply create an invoice in Sage Line 50 as they previously did, but instead of printing to their usual paper printer they select the Accountis ebPrinter instead. This automatically generates a digitally signed e-invoice in the correct format for the Trust. Also notified by email, the Trust can then login to their own Supplier Portal and upload the electronic invoice straight into their Oracle System to be matched to the original order.
A Faster, More Efficient Process
Using the Accountis e-invoicing system for sending and receiving orders and invoices has proved beneficial to both parties in more ways than one. By moving away from a laborious paper based process Hughes Meats and the North West Wales NHS Trust have saved valuable time and resources and benefited from an enhanced working relationship.
"Using the old paper based method many product codes were mismatched resulting in confusion over the order and numerous invoice queries. In implementing the Accountis e-invoicing system we have now not only managed to match the product codes but have streamlined the entire purchase-to-pay process," said Phil Jones.
The structured Supplier Adoption Programme directed by the Trust and managed by Accountis has ensured that the adoption of e-invoicing was as smooth and straightforward as possible for Hughes Meats. From a supplier perspective Hughes Meats have found the Accountis e-invoicing system to be extremely easy to use. The company are now truly reaping the rewards of e-invoicing, so much so, that they would like to expand their use of the system. They want more customers, especially the other NHS Trusts they supply to, to send them electronic orders via the Accountis system. The potential for increasing efficiency on a broader scale can only benefit Hughes Meats and have a positive impact on their business.
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