Member Article

Europa Cashes Out with Super-Fast New Finance Software

Continuing with the rapid development of its bespoke in-house IT system Leonardo, Europa Worldwide Group has now launched an additional function which speeds up the electronic processing of supplier invoices – saving the business money and time.

LeoFinance is one of the latest phases of the innovative logistics operator’s unique IT suite, which extends its Leonardo offering ever further.

The next add-on to this function is LeoScanning, designed to streamline the electronic processing and handling of incoming supplier invoices. Previously, invoices were received on paper, distributed accordingly and then were physically approved. LeoScanning is now live across the business’s European road freight operations with all European partners transferred to the system. 40% of the total Group’s invoices received were posted into the system in the first month alone.

IT Director at Europa, Richard Litchfield said LeoScanning had revolutionised the way the business processed financial documents, creating another advancement towards a paper free environment for the accounts department.

He said: “Prior to introducing this function, our business like many others was paper-reliant. LeoScanning removes the physicality of processing invoices and replaces it with a slick and efficient system which saves us both time and money. On average we process around 10,000 invoices a month – and by switching to LeoScanning we are saving more than 500-man hours per month.

“LeoScanning analyses each invoice, recognising key information in order to direct it to the right person within the business for sign off, with improved visibility throughout the whole process. Our finance team can now locate an invoice at the click of a button – there is no searching through stacks of paper. Furthermore, if we are expecting a regular and agreed cost from a supplier, the system will process the invoice without any human interaction, which again saves us valuable time.

“The plan is to continue to embed LeoScanning across the entire organisation and all of our suppliers.”

Finance Director at Europa, Rob Ross added: “For the finance team, Leo scanning is a great addition to the new LeoFinance system. It allows the purchase ledger team to process supplier invoices much more quickly and has meant we have not had to add additional clerks to the team.”

Europa unleashed Leonardo in July 2016, a revolutionary decision to give the business ultimate control over its own IT systems in a drive to improve responsiveness, efficiency, productivity and scalability across its 11 UK sites. Two years later and the streamlined benefits of Leonardo are now apparent across all arms of the business, from the finance team to inside the Europa cab.

Europa Worldwide Group is a specialist road, air & sea and warehouse operator which employs more than 750 staff across 11 sites in the UK and Hong Kong. It recently reported its financial results for year-end 31st December 2017 which showed the business to be in the strongest position in its 50-year history with turnover surpassing £144m, underlying net profit increased to £3.2m from £1.1m in 2016 and a very healthy increase in its net assets, which now stand at £6.8m compared to £3.7m in the preceding financial year.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Helen Patchett .