Since 1963, LeasePlan has been operating fleets of automobiles for more than 1,800 corporations and organizations around the world. Today, LeasePlan operates a global fleet of more than 1.2 million cars. They estimate that every minute of the day, LeasePlan buys a brand new car for their ever-growing fleet.

LeasePlan’s success operating their fleet of automobiles is based on the Open Calculation business model. With Open Calculation, LeasePlan’s customers receive an overview of all actual (financing, management, and administration) and estimated costs at the beginning of the contract period. At the end of the term, LeasePlan absorbs all negative differences between actual and budgeted costs and all positive differences (if actual costs were lower than estimated) are refunded to the customer.

This unique approach to customer service ensures LeasePlan’s customers’ loyalty and positive feedback. It also requires LeasePlan to make sure the information they work with is as accurate as possible.

At their office in Oslo, Norway, invoice processing was one of the areas in which LeasePlan needed to guarantee complete data accuracy. LeasePlan does business with more than 4,000 different vendors, from auto manufacturers, to insurance companies, to repair shops, to petrol stations. Each one of these expenses and services must be correctly calculated up front in LeasePlan’s Open Calculation to keep the company profitable.

LeasePlan had relied on a manual system of keying data from incoming paper invoices. Currently LeasePlan processes approximately 500 invoices per day at their offices in Norway. To minimize human errors and the expense involved in manual invoice processing, LeasePlan Norway chose to move to an automated system. LeasePlan’s IT Project Leader, Pål Balke, began looking for the best automated solution to meet their needs. Balke contacted local technology reseller KIBI to assist in the search.

LeasePlan had already looked at some possible solutions when they first met with KIBI. Coincidentally, KIBI had been installing just such a system internally when they met with Balke. KIBI had recently replaced software vendors and had just installed the invoice processing software AnyDoc®INVOICE from software developer AnyDoc Software. AnyDocINVOICE is uniquely designed to capture the essential data from invoices. Keywords and data elements on the invoice are used to find the correct data and automatically extract it in a consistent format for databases and accounting systems.

Balke says, “The other software we were looking at still required a template to be built for each invoice.” KIBI suggested a head to head look at two different software packages to see which is the best; AnyDocINVOICE won hands down.

“It was the ease of use which made AnyDocINVOICE the winner,” says Balke. “The other system required new vendor invoices to be set up in a complicated administration module. When AnyDocINVOICE encounters a new invoice or a new vendor, if it doesn’t capture the data automatically, a simple double-click of the mouse captures the correct data and the software memorizes the location for the next time.” Data entry personnel only require minimal training to use AnyDocINVOICE.

For installation of the software and training, AnyDoc Software sent a member of their Professional Services department to LeasePlan’s Norway office. A week on-site was all it took to get the system running and to train LeasePlan employees how to operate the software. Now each incoming invoice is scanned using a Fujitsu M4097D scanner which converts the incoming paper invoices into digital images. Eleven fields are automatically captured from the invoice, including invoice number, invoice date, total due, auto registration number, and more.

The vendor VAT number and bank account numbers on the invoice are compared against all vendors stored in LeasePlan’s IBM AS400 mainframe. Once the match is found, the correct vendor's number is automatically returned and added to the captured data.

The final indexed images and data are then imported into their IBM Content Manager system for storage and retrieval.

LeasePlan has been ecstatic with the results. Very quickly, invoice control was improved and mistakes eliminated. They saw an 80% reduction in the time and cost it took to process incoming invoices. As a result, LeasePlan employees no longer have to deal with manual invoice entry and now have more time to focus on critical business issues. As an added benefit, the distribution of the correct invoice data has resulted in LeasePlan offering an enhanced level of customer service.

Due to the overwhelming success in Norway, LeasePlan has also installed an identical system in their office in Sweden. And plans are underway to incorporate the AnyDocINVOICE solution into other LeasePlan Operating Companies – worldwide.

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