Wilson ASA case study
The Norwegian shipping company Wilson ASA has achieved major cost savings after implementing the eye-share Workflow Invoice system in 2010. Invoices are now kept track of at all given times, and you know what is due every day!
We wanted to achieve cost savings, and see that our goals and expectations have been met by implementing eye-share Workflow Invoice.
Finance Manager Trond Borge recalls the incentives for updating the administrative routines concerning invoices:
Previous routines were based on papers, and we had to physically send invoices back and forth for approval. We wanted to achieve cost-savings and see that our goals and expectations have been met by implementing eye-share Workflow Invoice, says Borge.
He says that Eye-share has contributed to a much more effective financial administration and cost management.
Total control
Wilson has a staff of about 100 administrative employees with headquarters in Bergen, Norway. The administration is spread on different locations throughout Europe.
We have invoice approvers in many locations. With eye-share Workflow Invoice they now only need a computer with Internet access, and all invoices in all phases are constantly available. This is a huge improvement from how it used to be. Before eye-share Invoice we could get a reminder from one of our subcontractors, and sometimes we had no idea where the invoice was. For all we knew it could be on the desk of an employee having a vacation. Today all approvers at Wilson can track any invoice at any given time, Borge says.
More automation – less work
As a big shipping company Wilson naturally must deal with quite a lot of subcontractors. Eye-share Workflow Invoice has greatly enhanced and simplified the whole purchasing process.
All orders have a unique project number. When we at a later stage receive an invoice from a subcontractor, this code, along with the sum, is checked by the system. If all numbers match up, the invoice will automatically be approved for payment, Borge says.
Borge estimates that approximately 40 000 invoices are being processed with eye-share Workflow Invoice annually, and approximately 20 000 of these are related to ship management and purchase orders. As eye-share Invoice provides automated approval, the Technical Management department only must deal with invoices where there are differences between the invoice and PO.
Borge estimates that 25 % of all invoices related to ship management are approved automatically, which gives the Technical Management department 20 less invoices per day to process. This number, however, may in time increase because eye-share Workflow Invoice can learn.
As soon as one invoice is being scanned, eye-share Workflow Invoice will recognize the second invoice from this particular subcontractor, Borge says.
Contract control
In 2013 Wilson bought the eye-share Contract Module as well, thus moving even further in the direction of a paperless administration.
We wanted the same control over contracts as we now have over invoices. Today we operate with huge archives of folders we physically must search through to find the right documents. Besides making administration of contracts a lot easier, eye-share Contracts Module comes with the feature of access restrictions. Everyone does not need to know everything, Borge says.
eye-share Workflow Invoice has greatly enhanced and simplified the whole purchasing process.
Wilson ASA is a “short sea” shipping company working hand in hand with major players within the Norwegian and European industry. The Wilson fleet consists of 113 vessels, ranging from 1,500 to 8,500 DWT, of which the Wilson group owns 86. The number of vessels places Wilson Group among the largest shipping operators within the European “short sea” segment.