The Inn Collection Group

Multi-Entities working with Sage 200

Each of their inns operate as separate business entities with their own Sage 200 purchase ledgers. All supplier invoices for each inn are sent to one central location. Identifying centrally which inn each invoice relates to is important. One of The Inn Collection Group’s main requirements was therefore to find an automated Accounts Payable solution that seamlessly handled multiple business entities and integrated directly with Sage 200.

Invoices are received for multiple items and new stock is purchased from new suppliers all the time. Most inns have the same suppliers; however each site may have local suppliers as well. With this in mind, it was also important that adding new suppliers to the system was a quick and easy process.

This was achieved by implementing Verify.

Jeremy Barber, Purchase Ledger Administrator explained that, “Adding new suppliers and adding new companies to Verify is seamless. I know that if I add a new supplier on Sage 200 today, it will already be sitting on Verify by tomorrow.”

The Inn Collection Group used their Sage partner OneSys to help with the project. OneSys recommended that they review four different systems; one of which was Verify.

The simplicity and modern look and feel of the software were also key elements in the selection of Verify.

Knowing that Agilico had knowledge and experience of providing Sage 200 solutions was important in giving The Inn Collection Group the confidence to choose Verify as the solution to move forward with.

Barber also found the implementation process simple, stating that it “Was not without its challenges but the Agilico Team were very keen to resolve these issues as soon as possible, which is commendable considering it was during a pandemic.”

Ultimately, he identified the way that Verify deals with multi-entities as critical to the decision of which solution provider to choose.

All supplier invoices for each entity are now emailed to one central email address, and the key invoice details and correct entity are automatically identified and captured by Verify.

He noted that some of the competitors required each entity to have a separate email address which was not manageable going forward, as Barber found: “This could cause confusion for suppliers and risked invoices being sent to the wrong email address.”

A Fully Automated Process

For the staff in the Accounts Payable function, the work now starts once Verify captures the supplier invoices.

Each site notifies the Finance Team that the goods ordered have been received. The Finance Team then cross-reference this against the invoice and check that the default account coding has been applied automatically, using data from Sage 200 about the supplier, and check the entity is correct. Where required, they can amend the coding for each invoice before the invoice is posted automatically to Sage 200.

Any high-value invoices follow an approval workflow where an email notification is sent to those persons responsible for approval with a link to click, taking them directly to the Verify system to view and simply approve or reject the invoice.

According to Barber, “The system has been well received by the Senior Managers with no resistance, and there are plans to expand the approval process to key project managers.”

Implementing an automated invoice processing solution has saved the Finance Team a large amount of time and effort. Barber notes, “Before month-end, I can get a significant number of invoices posted to Sage 200 the day before in the space of an hour, compared to a whole day’s work beforehand.”

Reflections – “Why Automate?”

Before implementing Verify, invoice processing was a manual, paper-based and time-consuming process. With invoice volumes reaching 25,000 invoices per annum and only expected to increase, the paper-based process was proving extremely inefficient. Additionally, the requirement to manually enter data onto Sage 200 further increased pressure on the Accounts Payable staff.

As the business grew from 10 to 18 inns, the growth in the volume of transactions resulted in the need to recruit staff at a rate that was not scalable.

Complexity was also added to the process by a growing number of sites and suppliers.

The paper-based invoice process was a burden. Invoices would be sent by post to each site, checked off as receipted by the chef, which sometimes took weeks, before being sent off to the Finance Team based in Alnwick for processing. There were also large time delays in getting the invoices processed and paid on time.

This distributed manual processing resulted in invoices going missing at different inns, which increased the risk of incorrect processing and payments not being made as there was no clear visibility of where invoices were in the process.

The above problems are all addressed by automation.

Conclusion

The Inn Collection Group will continue to grow rapidly in the coming months and years with their ambitious growth plans and lockdown restrictions easing. This will only result in higher invoice volumes, new entities, and new suppliers. Luckily, they already have the people, systems and processes in place to help facilitate this growth. Barber stated, “I know we will get greater gains of efficiency and control using Verify in the future.”