- Customer
Name
- Pacific International Lines (Pte) Ltd
- The
Challenge
- Slow approval process for invoices
- Slow retrieval of documents for auditing
- Invoices may be lost as it circulate to several approving parties
- Occasional payment delays
-
The
Solution
- Canon imageRUNNER (multi function devices)
- Opentext Livelink
-
The
Results
- Improved invoice and credit notes approval process
- Better relationship with suppliers
- Reduced paper circulation to save space
- No more missing documents
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"The payment cycle is effectively shortened by half from 90 days to 45 days, enabling PIL to proactively settle their bills within credit terms and providing PIL the leverage to negotiate with suppliers for payment and pricing discounts." Mr Low Wai Mung, Assistant General Manager, PIL Information Systems Department
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About Pacific International Lines
Formed in 1967, Pacific International
Lines (PIL) has since grown from a coastal
ship-owner cum operator in Singapore to
become one of Asia’s largest ship owners
with a group turnover of over S$3.8 billion.
Today, it ranks 19th amongst the top container
ship operators in the world, having diversified
into logistics-related activities such as
supply chain management, consolidation/
distribution facilities and warehousing. PIL’s
other involvements include container depot
operations and trucking, as well as maintaining
an interest in container manufacturing, marine
engineering, real estate and ship agencies
worldwide.
As of July 2009, PIL owns and operates a
fleet of 103 vessels with a total TEU capacity
of about 183,604 TEUs. 15 new container
vessels with a total capacity of 52,738 TEUs
will be delivered by September 2011. PIL
also owns and operates a fleet of more than
336,569 TEUs of marine containers.
Well established as one of Asia’s leading
total transportation companies, PIL operates
container liner services covering the whole
of the Far East to Europe, the Black Sea,
Canada and the Indian sub-continent. Other
regions include the Red Sea/Gulf, East and
South/West Africa, as well as Australia, New
Zealand, the East Coast of South America and
the West Coast of USA.
In addition, the company also has a dedicated
network of feeder services covering a
comprehensive range of ports in South East
Asia, the Bay of Bengal and the East Coast
of India.
PIL’s Paperwork Dilemma
In an organisation as established as theirs,
PIL’s day to day operations naturally involve
extensive paperwork that ranges from shipping
invoices to credit notes from its suppliers.
With that much paperwork circulating
between several of its departments, PIL
faced the dilemma of having to find and pay
for expensive storage space to house its
documents. This, in turn, resulted in several
other related inconveniences.
Slow Auditing Process
In the interests of saving storage space, for
example, PIL’s finance documents would
often be archived in a separate warehouse.
Retrieving these documents proved to be
a constant hassle whenever an audit was
required.
“PIL staff will often have to spend hours looking
though tons of documents in the office, or
wait more than a day to retrieve them from the
warehouse, which considerably slows down
the auditing process. In addition, printer ink
on the documents can also fade over time and
further disrupt the auditing process,” said Mr
Low Wai Mung, Assistant General Manager
at PIL’s Information Systems Department.
Delayed Payment Process
Existing procedure requires that incoming
invoices are first processed by PIL’s finance
department, before going into a manual memo
system that tracks the invoices as they are
sent to and from the various parties required
for final approval. This often resulted in
unnecessary delays in the payment process.
“Whenever a supplier enquired about an
outstanding invoice, it was difficult to trace
the printed documents as they travelled from
one party to another, before finally arriving
at the finance department. Payment may
be delayed due to this lengthy process,”
continued Mr Low.
He added, “As a result, any early payment
discounts offered by these suppliers would
no longer apply, and these payment delays
could potentially cause PIL to reach our
credit limits with the suppliers, which would
in turn disrupt future orders. Such a scenario
is highly undesirable.”
Clear Skies Ahead For PIL With
Canon’s Opentext Livelink Solution
To greatly improve its document efficiency
and information flow, PIL enlisted the help of
Canon’s customised Opentext Livelink Solution:
-
Canon’s multi-function devices and DR
scanners were used to first scan all
incoming supplier invoices and
credit notes into PDF documents.
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These documents are then automatically
routed to the various parties for
verification and approval, before
being sent to the respective head of
departments and subsequently to the
finance department. “With Opentext Livelink, the
verification and approval process has
improved by over 1.5 man days per month
for every 20 suppliers!” said Mr Low.
-
Once the finance department receives the
final approved document, Opentext Livelink will send
the approved invoice into an “Approved”
folder in their accounting system, so that
payment will be made. Upon payment,
the documents will then be channeled
into a folder where users can easily
check if payment has been made for any
particular invoice.
This fully-automated process resulted in the
following integrated benefits:
Improved Invoice Tracking Efficiency
“When suppliers contact our finance
department to enquire about an invoice,
PIL staff can now quickly locate the PDF
document on Canon’s Opentext Livelink to confirm its
exact status and provide them with a quick
response. The response time has since
improved from more than an hour before
implementation to currently less than a
minute. This dramatically improves both our
efficiency and image,” explained Mr Low.
Better Relationships With Suppliers
On top of the above improvements, Opentext Livelink
is now also able to generate reports to
show the status of all invoices that are
pending approval. “The finance department
is able to see which individuals are holding
on to invoices with short credit terms, and
remind them to speed up their approvals.
As such, the payment cycle is effectively
shortened by half from 90 days to 45 days,
enabling PIL to proactively settle their bills
within credit terms and providing PIL the
leverage to negotiate with suppliers for
payment and pricing discounts thereafter,”
Mr Low added.
Reduced Storage Space Required
The digitisation of all hardcopy documents
results in less paper being passed around,
and consequently, a reduction in required
document storage space. Expensive storage
space can now be more efficiently
utilised while maintaining a neater work
environment.
No More Misplaced Documents
“Since the original hardcopy document is
now scanned and then kept by PIL’s finance
department, there is no longer a need for us
to track down any misplaced documents, or
for our suppliers to resend any invoices. All
this has greatly reduced any frustration for
both parties, creating a pleasant and truly
efficient working environment -- and for
this, we have Canon to thank,” concluded a
satisfied Mr Low.
Through their implementation of Canon’s
multi-function devices and customised
Opentext Livelink solution, PIL is now able to:
- Quickly track the status of an invoice with improved efficiency and speedier response to its suppliers.
- Automate approval processes, resulting in prompt payment within credit terms.
- Digitise all hardcopy documents to reduce storage space and its related costs.
- Ensure that important hardcopy documents are never misplaced.
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