TMH Slovensko cuts invoice processing time with iPOS module for Infor SunSystems

Overview

Toyota Material Handling logo

When most people hear the name Toyota, they may think of a company that’s been the leader in producing hybrid cars for more than 20 years. But if you’ve been around a warehouse or logistics facility lately there’s a good chance you’ve encountered a different kind of Toyota vehicle.

Toyota Material Handling Europe (TMHE) is part of Toyota Industries Corporation, the global leader in material handling since 2001 and active in 5 regions worldwide under the brands Toyota, BT, Raymond and Cesab. They have factories in Sweden (Mjölby), France (Ancenis) and Italy (Bologna), where over 95% of the pallet trucks and forklifts they sell in Europe are produced. The Toyota and BT brands combine more than 100 years of experience in manufacturing and together they are a world leader in the production of innovative and high-quality handling equipment.

THMSK, the facility in Bratislava, Slovakia, has been a long-time Infor SunSystems customer and recently started using iPOS for SunSystems to manage their purchasing and procurement with great success.


Challenge

Like many organizations, TMH Slovensko receives hundreds of invoices per month that need to go through an approval process before payment is issued. Depending on the amount of the invoice and the characteristics of the vendor, the approval process often involves multiple people and multiple departments. The practice of receiving, scanning, and routing physical invoices and their attachments and matching them to the initial requisition was all being done manually and consumed a significant amount of time and resources.

When folders filled with paper documents were distributed for approval, if one person in the approval process was out of office on holiday or working from home, the whole process would grind to a halt adding days to the approval cycle. This manual practice led to avoidable delays and sometimes resulted in late payments to vendors and suppliers.

Approach

LLP Group has a long-standing business relationship with TMHSK and has been responsible for maintaining and upgrading Infor SunSystems for nearly two decades. Through a series of business process review workshops, we examined existing procurement practices, agreed on what a future state could look like, and determined the best path to get there. This required reviewing the current processes and adjusting that framework to align within defined processes and structures in iPOS and creating a project plan for implementation of the module.

Toyota cars in a factory

Marek Jendrej
Director of Finance
Toyota Material Handling Slovensko

Since implementing iPOS, we’ve significantly reduced the labor intensive need for scanning and manually routing invoices to various department for approval. We now have 99% of our vendors and suppliers sending us electronic invoices. And with the mobile functionality enabled, I can approve invoices from my mobile phone while away from the office.


Solution

iPOS is a powerful purchasing tool designed for SunSystems users who want to minimize the time and costs associated with purchasing and deliver measurable bottom-line savings to the organization. It starts with the requisition process and uses the information from the initial request to create a purchase order that makes matching the purchase order to the receipt of goods and the invoice an automatic process, virtually eliminating the need for manual data entry beyond the initial request.

Since iPOS integrates directly with Infor SunSystems, it was a natural choice to bring automation to the procurement and approval process at TMHSK. iPOS eliminated the need to manually scan paper invoices and enabled electronic distribution so approval could happen in hours rather than days. As an integration rather than an interface, iPOS uses the same chart of accounts and transaction codes as those set up in SunSystems so there’s no duplication of data or the need to manually enter information, making reporting and analysis of transactions a simple process.

Results

Since the implementation of iPOS at Toyota Material Handling Slovensko, they have streamlined the procurement process resulting in a significant decrease in the time and cost it took using manual methods. iPOS has brought better visibility and tighter control to the purchasing process, offered department better control and a faster way to approve purchase orders and invoices, and offered consistency and predictability to employees.

  • Supplier invoices, quantities, and costs are matched to purchase order values and receiving records to automatically create an approved payment voucher for Accounts Payable.
  • Real time integration with SunSystems ensures budgeting checks are always correct and protects against duplicate invoice processing.
  • Automatic notifications are sent to users by email to update them on the status of their requests with the option to escalate requests in certain circumstances.
  • Pre-defined rule sets allow for requisitions to be automatically routed to the relevant approver via email and can be configured to include up to six levels of authorization.

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