Bidco automates invoice processing with OpenText

OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC), a global leader in enterprise information management (EIM), today announced that Bidco, a leading manufacturer and marketer of consumer products in Africa, has adopted OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions to increase efficiency and audit capabilities for its shared service centre, which handles common business processes such as accounts receivable, payment approval and master data management.

The largest manufacturer and marketer of consumer products in the Eastern, Central and Southern regions of Africa, Bidco produces, markets and distributes a broad range of products to 350 million consumers over a wide range of countries. Bidco receives tens of thousands of paper invoices from its suppliers each year for a growing range of products. With OpenText Vendor Invoice Management, the company can automatically capture data from physical and digital invoices and process them in a fraction of the time required by manual processes.

"We've always had a drive to improve our processes, make ourselves more efficient and resolve any bottlenecks in our systems," said Alkane Patel, head of IT at Bidco Africa. "This was a key area for us. We handle so many physical invoices each year through our Shared Service Centre that a lot of time was being lost managing that process. OpenText's technology has enabled us to automate this process."

With OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions, Bidco can automatically scan and extract key data points and process invoices with three-way matching. If an invoice successfully matches to an order and passes automatic checks, it can be processed automatically without human intervention. After only four months in production, Bidco is already processing 55% of its invoices through the solution and has reduced processing time by 80%.

"The system takes care of much more than capturing and matching invoices; it also automatically routes approvals and handles exceptions, giving us instant visibility into our current liabilities and making it much easier to assemble reports. We have a complete audit trail that's automatically linked to SAP, even helping us fight fraud by highlighting when something isn't quite right," said Patel.

Visit the OpenText Web site to learn more about OpenText Vendor Invoice Management.