Orange Business Services transforms procurement function with e-invoicing

Orange Business Services, the B2B arm of France Telecom, is implementing a new e-invoicing system that it hopes will improve the efficiency of its purchasing processes.

The network and managed IT service provider is implementing the Kofax Transformation Modules, a set of applications that allows Orange Business Services to capture data from an electronic document and check it against existing information in its Oracle ERP system.

For example, the system could capture the VAT number and the supplier name from an invoice, which it would then match and check against the company’s supplier database.

“This gives us a high level of confidence that the data extracted is accurate,” said Pete Loughlin, head of purchase to pay (P2P) at Orange Business Services.

Prior to the software implementation, staff at the company had to manually key data from scanned images into the Oracle Financials system, which was not only time-consuming, but prone to data entry errors.

Loughlin believes that the new data capture system will help to reduce the errors and make the invoicing process more efficient, while eliminating paper and improving the company’s carbon footprint.

One of the biggest challenges of implementing the new process was that a large proportion of invoices came from Orange Business Services’ smaller suppliers.

The company receives around 150,000 invoices a year, from 10,000 active suppliers around the world. Just over 25 percent of the invoices would come from the smaller suppliers.

Loughlin said that Orange Business Services is working with suppliers to encourage them to send invoices electronically, or simply as a PDF image.

The new Kofax system is expected to be rolled out in the second half of this year.