The Challenge
As BTMI has grown during the past seven years, its finance and accounting teams have had to deal with a rising workload from multiple entities with complex global consolidations requirements.BTMI’s Director of Finance, Michelle Moore, says many of the processes had become heavily reliant on paper which was becoming a burden as the organization became busier and established an international footprint.
“Our purchase order process had become particularly inefficient,” she says. “Workflows relied on us printing everything out and then sending forms to different managers for approval before payment of invoices could be made.”
“We realised we needed to find a better way to process all our purchase orders,” says Moore. “It became a significant priority for the finance team.”
The Solution
After examining a range of options, a decision was taken in October, 2020 to deploy Purchasing Workflow which includes the purchasing web front and PT-GO smart phone App from Pacifictech.BTMI had already been using Sage 300 for more than 10 years, and this is the reason why they selected Pacifictech’s fully integrated Purchasing Workflow module. With Craig Hinds, BTMI's newly appointed Chief Financial Officer pioneering the project, the deployment began in late October 2020 and was completed in just two-and-a-half months.
“During that time, we set up workflows, tested functionality, and undertook comprehensive staff training,” says Moore. “We were assisted in this process by our technology partner RAB Consulting.”
The technology team also worked to link Purchasing Workflow with other existing modules to further improve finance workflows throughout the organization:
Funds Availability –Real Time Budget Checking
Workflow Documents – The ability to add supporting documents such as quotes , itineraries and/or any items relating to the purchases.
Audit Logger – Tracking of adds and changes within the Sage 300 data
The Benefits
With Purchasing Workflow now fully functional, BTMI has been enjoying some significant benefits:Key benefits:
- Remote access allows for critical continuation of business Purchasing Workflow with PW-Web is particularly valuable when staff need to work from home during the COVID-19 disruptions. Workflows are now digital and staff can issue purchase orders and arrange invoice payments just as easily from home as from the office.
- Transparency and visibility of commitments There is visibility on what has been purchased providing accuracy on future financial commitments. This translates to much better internal business controls.
- Significant improvement in internal processes Improved ability to make timely payment of invoices rather than taking weeks for purchase orders to be approved - they can now be done in just days or even minutes.
- Streamlined and easy processing of approvals Documents can now be viewed on a PC, a tablet, or even a smartphone and approvals can be given with just the click of a button.
- Paperless and environmentally friendly Paper has been completely removed from the process with all purchase orders and supporting documents handled in digital form.
- Ease of use and flexible The ability to approve requisitions on the go from PC or Smart Phone has been simplified and has made processeing approvals much easier.
The Conclusion
As well as eliminating the organization of large volumes of paper files, shifting to Purchasing workflow is saving BTMI significant amounts when it comes to printing. Moore estimates these savings are “in the thousands of dollars each month”.Moore says she expects BTMI to make even more use of digital tools such as Purchasing Workflow in the future. This direction of adopting digital technologies to enhance business productivity is in keeping with the Government of Barbados’ overall position. The finance team is currently evaluating the Pacifictech solution that can extract data from invoices and automatically create transactions within Sage.