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In January 2007 BAE Systems, one of the world’s leading defence and aerospace companies with annual sales of £15.4bn, deployed a new supplier invoice processing solution to automate their Accounts Payable (AP) function.
The system is implemented at its UK Finance shared service centre in Preston, and uses Paradatec’s PROSAR-AIDA technology to process approximately 45,000 SAP invoices per annum.
BAE is spread across 40 locations in the UK and their finance systems managers needed a solution which would automate the invoice handling process, and improve financial control over payment and approvals processes.
BAE opted for an automated solution, which will enable them to process large volumes of vendor invoices efficiently, at minimum cost to the organisation and without the need for high levels of customisation. This replaces BAE System’s existing manual invoice processing system and will reduce invoice and query management by 50%.
The company previously operated a manual invoice handling process, which was time and labour intensive and required individual authorisation signatures to be obtained and crosschecked before invoices could be processed.
The new system has automated this process, removing the need for manual intervention at each stage but still allowing staff to carry out the necessary audit and quality control checks. The system was initially rolled out to the Accounts Payable team, and has been well accepted, enabling them to improve and streamline their working practice considerably.
The solution is expected to be extended in 2007, to automate the handling of an additional 35,000 invoices through its IFS business system. | 
BAE Systems
