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LET’S TALK • +1 (800) 381-3585 • [email protected]
Tradeshift sat down with Nick Shields, AP Accounting Supervisor of ADM Shared Services, about ADM’s journey into AP automation.
Tell us about ADM’s purchase-to-pay journey.
Nick Shields: Our procure-to-pay journey started in September 2012 when our procurement group authored ADM’s procure-to-pay policy, which dictates how buyers within our company can spend ADM’s money.
We then started to centralize our Accounts Payable processing, bringing it from 350 locations within the US and Canada to our shared services center. We went live with that in July of 2013 – we had all of our invoice processing happening within our SSC.
We’ve been doing that for about a year: Learning about the process, getting better metrics on how much it costs to actually process an invoice. Now we are underway with an e-invoicing project with Tradeshift.
What are some challenges you faced in transforming purchases and payables?
NS: The biggest thing we had to deal with was educa-tion of what the process should be. ADM facilities range from huge corn processing facilities to small county elevators that have 3 employees, so it’s difficult to get the message to every location about what the process should be and how to write a high quality purchase order.
Most of them were used to writing the purchase order after the invoice had arrived, which completely defeated the purpose of it. So we’ve targeted locations that need more education about how they can improve their receiving or purchasing capabilities.
What were the drivers of ADM’s automation — why now?
NS: We were 100% paper-based, and our process was so backwards, we would take an emailed invoice, print it out so that we could type it in, and rescan it later.
Agriculture Giant Archer Daniels Midland Selects Tradeshift to Transform AP & P2P
CASE STUDY
The Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) is an American global food- processing corporation with more than 33,000 employees in 140 countries. With more than 470 crop procurement locations, 285 ingredient manufacturing facilities, 40 innova-tion centers and the world’s premier crop transportation network, ADM consistently ranks in Fortune’s “World’s Most Admired Food Production Companies.”
LET’S TALK • +1 (800) 381-3585 • [email protected]
The biggest thing is eliminating that paper, and getting to the point where invoices are coming electronically into our system without someone having to enter that data.
What made Tradeshift an interesting candidate in the marketplace?
NS: Tradeshift offered a lot of different options for vendors to submit invoices to us. The only limiting factor is an internet connection… It’s an easy-to- understand platform.
Right now, ADM’s shared service center is very North America-centric, but our vision is to have global processes, and we wanted to make sure that whatever we chose in North America was going to be able to work across the globe. Tradeshift has all the language capabilities built into the platform; they have a help desk with employees that speak multiple languages, and they have a lot of knowledge around VAT compliance.
Are there specific capabilities, technology or process changes that ADM was looking for?
NS: We’re starting to get into designing how we want workflow to look within our organization. We want to get to the point where we’re able to pay all of our invoices within 10 days. And we want to be able to do really cool things like dynamic discounting. Right now we can’t guarantee that we’re able to pay something within 10 days.
What are the benefits of automation through Tradeshift?
NS: It’s reducing paper costs for us. We were hiring temporary employees just to help us key all these invoices into our system, so there are cost reductions there. But also being able to get rid of late fees, being able to capture all the discounts that we have available to us, as well as reduced printing costs.
How are you planning to reduce friction between approvers and buyers/suppliers to drive Tradeshift adoption?
NS: When we centralized invoice processing, our locations felt that without a paper invoice, they were losing control of their spend. They didn’t know whether an invoice was getting paid, or if a vendor was sending it directly to us.
We’ve reduced friction through communication and visibility into the process. With Tradeshift electronic invoicing, the minute a vendor submits something to be paid it’s right there to be seen. And everyone can see each step of the process.
The big thing for our employees is really seeing that image of the invoice. It’s a huge thing to try to communicate – that the data is just as good as the piece of paper they had previously. Being able to add visibility throughout the entire process has been the biggest help in winning over our locations and our stakeholders.
“ Tradeshift has all the language capabilities built into the platform; they have a help desk with employees that speak multiple languages, and they have a lot of knowledge around VAT compliance. ”
— Nick Shields, AP Accounting Supervisor of ADM Shared Services
Talk to one of our experts to learn more about transforming your AP and P2P processes. Call: +1 (800) 381-3585 or Email: [email protected]
