Monthly Archives: February 2014

Facebook’s Next Target: Relationships!

Today’s guest post is from Anonymous.

Oh… my… God! Can you imagine? Facebook post rates fall from an average of 1.66 posts per day to a shocking 1.56 posts per day, at the point where a couple announces they are “in a relationship”. (Source: The Fascinating Anatomy of a Facebook Relationship)

Why? The happy couple is so entranced with their new status, and with their new life together, that they REDUCE their Facebook participation by an astounding 0.10 posts per day!

So what does this mean? Let’s assume that the average day contains about 3 hours of leisure time. We assume, of course, that 1.56/1.66 of it is still devoted to Facebook (like the Facebook data scientists). Therefore 0.1/1.66 of it is spent on your basic brick-and-mortar relationship stuff, or, hmm, let’s see…. (grabs calculator) … 10.8 minutes!

And, not surprisingly, this time correlates quite well with the average time intercourse lasts. (Source: Thank You, Doctors: The Average Sex Time Is Not as Long as You’d Think)

Those nasty Facebook data scientists!

Thank you, Anonymous!

It’s the 250th Anniversary of St. Louis

A major port on the Mississippi River for almost two centuries (with active steamboats since 1818), it was once the fourth largest city in the USA and the gateway to the western territory to the United States after the Louisiana Purchase.  Steamboats have been   One hundred and ten years ago it hosted the World’s Fair and the summer olympics as the first non-European city to do so. The World’s Fair gave St. Louis it’s Forst Park, Art Museum, History Museum, and Zoo.  It may no longer be in the top 50 cities by population size in the US, but it’s history as an important trade nexus should not be forgotten.  

Sadly, It Looks Like the doctor’s 2014 Procurement Prediction is Going to Come True!

In Prediction Time Again? Ugh. (Part I and Part II), the doctor predicted that 2014 will be 2013 part II and 2009 part VI. Specifically, this means that

  • the focus will continue to be on cost-cutting and not value-creation,
  • valuable, high-ROI, technology will continue to be ignored, and
  • the training and new talent budgets will remain empty.

According to Deloitte’s recently released Global CPO Survey, 79% of CPO priorities have cost reduction as their #1 priority.

According to the Hackett Group’s recent EPM Executive Perspective on Technology Enablement: A Critical Piece of the Performance Management Puzzle, 63% of world class and 82% of peer group organizations still create management reports using spreadsheets as the primary business application.

And ProcureCon’s just-released State of Indirect Procurement Benchmark Report, which was complied from the responses to a benchmarking questionnaire distributed to ProcureCon Indirect West’s audience of procurement and sourcing practitioners, found that 55% of attendees at the event felt that their Procurement team was not adequately staffed and 60% of their organizations had no plans to increase the team size.

It’s a dismal state of affairs indeed.

If you need ideas to help kickstart your Supply Management organization and get out of this quagmire, consider joining the doctor at the inaugural ProcureCon Canada event (and register with code PCA14SI). Let’s share ideas, knowledge, and a commitment to moving the discipline forward, even if we need to light a few fires.

Basware: P2P for the Global “E” Part III

In yesterday’s post, we continued our introduction to Basware, a Finnish provider of enterprise finance solutions that serves the global e-Commerce, P2P, and AP Automation marketplace with over 2,000 international customers that collectively do business with over 1 Million companies in over 100 countries. Yesterday, we focussed on the AP automation and invoice processing capabilities. Today we are going to discuss the e-Invoicing functionality and the Basware Commerce Network.

The Basware Commerce Network (BCN) is an open commerce network that connects to almost 1 Million companies in over 100 countries through over 170 partner networks which include B2BE, Cortex, Crediflow, Crossgate, Danske Bank, Edisoft, Elemica, GHX, GXS, Hubspan, Tradex, Unified Post, Ximantix and over 150 others. Customers on the Basware Commerce Network can send and receive e-Invoices and e-Documents to any company connected to the BCN through one of the partner networks free of charge1. The BCN, which has implemented tax compliance in more than 50 countries, currently delivers over 60 Million e-Invoices per year (with a combined value in excess of $420 Billion) and Basware expects to be processing over 150 Million e-Invoices a year by the end of 2015 (which will have a combined value in excess of 1 Trillion dollars).

A key feature of the BCN is that it was designed to be used by, and equally support, senders and receivers. Note that we are not using the standard terminology of buyers and suppliers because, whereas some networks were designed to be buyer centric and support the buyer who is receiving tens (or hundreds) of thousands of invoices a year, the solution was designed for companies who are receiving tens (or hundreds) of thousands of invoices a year and for companies who are sending out tens (or hundreds) of thousands of invoices a year. Since Basware started out as a enterprise finance platform, and not an e-Procurement platform, they have a unique take on P2P and design their solutions to enable both senders and receivers (and suppliers and buyers) equally. As a result, the solution is just as likely to be acquired by a large (CPG) manufacturer or apparel distributor which only receives a few invoices for raw materials but sends out ten to one hundred times as many to its customer base of all sizes that orders frequently and in small amounts.

Another key feature is that when the BCN is working flawlessly, it’s invisible. The entire point of the network is automatic delivery and automation of e-Invoice and other e-Document processing, which will either be done through a module in Basware’s application suite or your existing ERP, MRP, or AP solution. As per our last post, Basware has already integrated with over 250 ERP, MRP, AP, and other back-office systems and, if you already have a system for processing the e-Invoices, purchase orders, and other e-Documents sent over the network, it will push the documents into (and pull the appropriate documents and confirmations from) those systems. If your existing system is “plugged in” to the network, you’ll never have to use the portal2. Typically, a person in the receiving party will only log into the portal to verify that an invoice has been received when he gets a call from an individual in the sending party3 (and does not have access to the processing system — for example, the supplier might call up the account rep to ask if the invoice was received instead of someone in Accounts Payable). And typically the only senders who will sign into the portal are small suppliers who haven’t integrated the BCN into their Accounts Receivable / Back Office invoice management software and want to send an invoice over the BCN (to insure prompt receipt, processing, and payment capability).

With the BCN, it’s possible for an organization to achieve 100% e-Invoice penetration. Because the BCN supports receipt of invoices by EDI, XML, inter-operator networks, direct connect, virtual printer, Scan-and-Capture, Cloud-scan, e-mail (Lite)4 and even keyed-in by the supplier, which covers every methodology a supplier may use to send an invoice, customers of the BCN can achieve 100% paper-free invoice processing (and have in countries with strict e-Invoicing requirements, such as Brazil, Finland, Sweden and Norway). Note that they have multiple scan solutions — you can scan it and key it in locally through the BCN portal, and attach the scan; you can have it sent to your OCR provider that is plugged into the BCN; or use Basware’s Cloudscan which will take the scan, process it, and push it into your e-Invoice solution, flagging any exceptions or scanning issues that need to be manually addressed.

The supplier portal is designed to be quick and easy to use, and is divided into four main sections, current work-view, inbox, sent and purchase orders. In the current-workflow, the supplier sees all of the incoming events that need to be processed; in the inbox, the supplier sees the incoming purchasing orders, associated messages, and status updates from the buyer; in the sent tab, the supplier sees the invoices they sent through the network, associated messages and status updates they provided; and in the purchase order tab they can search purchase orders and dive into the details of the purchase order, view line items, retrieve attached files, view the processing history, and pull up associated invoices that they sent to the buyer.

Since the network is designed to integrate with the buyer’s current ERP, MRP, AP and back-office systems and Basware P2P modules, the buyer portal is equally minimal and easy to use. The buyer can log in to search and view incoming invoices, send messages or queries to the supplier about those invoices, and run reports on the invoices in the system to query the number, and ids, of open invoices, invoices by supplier, invoices unpaid, etc. Since there was no need to duplicate the functionality in the other Basware modules and/or the other back-office systems currently in place in most customer organizations, Basware designed the portal to support quick and simple confirmational queries and messaging between the buyer and supplier, and it does this quite well. In addition, all discussions are included in the audit trail and can be retrieved at any time.

And the proof of the value is in the e-Invoice pudding it supports. A Major Engineering firm in the Netherlands that was receiving over 150,000 (paper) invoices a year was able to replace over 50% of these paper invoices with e-Invoices in less than six months and automatically match more than 80% of them, which translated into a 60% reduction in manpower required for invoice processing (which had an associated cost of 6.5 FTEs). A leading energy company in Europe which received over 700,000 (paper) invoices a year was able to convert over 50% of its suppliers to e-Invoices in six months by partnering with Basware to help it with a global supplier activation (on-boarding) program. A leading mining, construction, oil & gas, and pulp and paper company in Brazil was able to achieve 100% e-Invoice penetration with the help of Basware which, with its Cloudscan solution, was able to help the company help its suppliers push 100% of its 200,000 plus annual invoice volume through the BCN. And it’s not just buyers who have invested heavily in the BCN. One of the largest CPG companies (with a market cap in excess of 30 Billion) uses the platform to send over 400,000 invoices electronically in Scandinavia and nearby countries in the EU. No matter how big your e-Invoicing need, Basware and its BCN can handle the volume.


1 Free of charge is conditional on delivery mechanism used. Portal (invoice key-in and PO flip) and sending e-invoices via email are free for the supplier and a buyer can receive e-Invoices through the portal free of charge from a sender.

2 However, you still may want to use the value added services of the portal which include, but are not limited to, tracking invoice status and collaborating with your business partners.

3 Who could log into the supplier portal to get the same information, but, due to technical issues on the supplier side, is unable to do so at that particular point in time.

4 Scan-and-capture refers to in-house scanning and OCR (optical character recognition), cloud-scan refers to outsourced scan-and-capture, and e-mail Lite is Basware’s solution for receiving invoices via e-mail.

Basware: P2P for the Global “E” Part II

Late last fall, we introduced you to Basware, Procure-to-Pay for the Global “E”. Founded in 1985 in Espoo, Finland (as Baltic Accounting Systems), Basware has been delivering enterprise finance solutions for almost 30 years. Since its humble beginnings, it has grown to one of the largest global players in the Procure-to-Pay marketplace with over 2,000 international customers that collectively do business with over 1 Million companies in over 100 countries. In order to support this global customer base, Basware has had to create an operational footprint that spans over 50 countries on 6 continents which includes over 100 partner and resellers, including MasterCard and BravoSolution.

In our initial post, we noted that one of the most unique features of the platform is the fact that it spans the full AP and P2P cycles, whereas many of the smaller P2P and e-Procurement platforms are Procurement centric, with little support for AP. From the procurement side, the platform contains modules for analytics, basic sourcing, contract management, catalog management, e-Procurement, and e-Invoicing. From the AP side, the platform contains modules for e-Invoice Receipt (through the Basware Commerce Network), e-Invoice Processing, e-Invoice Matching, e-Payment, and Analytics. Furthermore, all modules are integrated with a consistent look-and-feel and all modules are available on top of Basware’s new cloud-based Alusa platform that supports (multi-)enterprise private cloud instances.

In that post, we noted we would dive deeper into AP automation and (e-)Invoice processing, matching, and payment capabilities; the Basware Commerce Network (BCN); and the associated analytics in later posts. This is the first post in that series, focussing on the AP automation and invoice processing capabilities.

The invoicing module, which works pretty much as you would expect based upon standard definitions and features implemented by their North American counterparts, has a few unique features that deserve to be highlighted. Namely:

  • full compliance with e-Commerce, Taxation, and Digital Signature Requirements in over 50 countries
  • full Purchase-to-Pay process coverage from the Procurement and the AP perspective
  • integrated plans and workflows

Even though North America might be behind when it comes to e-Commerce and digital signatures, and many of the North American Procurement providers might be behind when it comes to recognition of the various types of taxes and tax codes that exist around the world, Basware, which has been supporting (e-)commerce around the world for over a decade, is up to date on all of the digital signature requirements, tax codes, and audit trail requirements. With Basware’s solution, chances are you’re ready to conduct business in every country you operate in out-of-the-box. Basware has already been integrated with over 250 ERP, MRP, AP, and other back-office systems and e-Document/e-Invoice formats supported include, but are not limited to, Finvoice, Teapps, E2B, eHF, OIOXML, cXML, EDIFACT, UN/Cefact, CSV, EDI ANSI X12 (810), Svefaktura, OIOUBL, UBL, openTrans, and SAP iDOC.

Since the Procurement module directly integrates with the AP module, as soon as the invoice is received, it can not only be automatically matched (against any and all e-Documents that are appropriate), automatically processed for approval using the appropriate user-defined rules, and routed as required for error processing or manual approval, but analyzed from a financial perspective. What is the cash-flow impact of paying early, on time, or late? How long is it taking to get through the manual processing queue versus average processing time and what impact is it having on average cycle time? Are the payment terms in line with organizational standards?

One interesting capability of the AP Automation solution (which includes Basware Invoice, Basware Match-Orders, Basware Match-Plans, Basware Mobile, and Basware Analytics) is the ability to create and manage payment plans. Basware has found that 8% to 15% of invoices in an average organization are both ‘orderless’ and recurring. In order to handle these situations, Basware created plans that can be used to define a recurring invoice and special processing rules for dealing with them. For example, a cell phone bill will come in every month the cell phone is active. There is no reason that it can’t be automatically approved every month if it is within the expected and approved amount for the employee whom the cell-phone is assigned to. For example, the user can be assigned a base plan amount and a variable amount for long-distance charges, data charges, and/or roaming charges. If the amounts are within the maximums, or tolerances, the invoice can be automatically approved. If not, then the invoice will need to be routed to the employee’s supervisor or the budget manager for approval. All of this can be captured in a plan. The plan can define the source of the invoice, the purpose of the invoice, the different line items and charges that can occur on the invoice, different tolerances and limits for the base amount and variable amount, different approval routings for each rule violation, and an appropriate workflow, among other features. In addition, invoices can be flipped into plans. Furthermore, if an invoice contains additional or unexpected line items, they will be pulled out into separate cost allocations, which can then be added to the plan if required. Manual handling of the recurring invoice disappears completely if everything about the invoice is in-line with expectations and is minimized otherwise.

Finally, Basware estimates that it’s e-Invoice solution will bring a best-in-class €10.90 per invoice (and $17 USD) through its Basware Commerce Network, which will be covered in more detail in our next post.