Bright Horizons achieves total visibility of end-to-end procurement and spend with Proactis
Bright Horizons digitised procurement with Proactis, achieving 100% spend visibility, automating 60% of invoices, and increasing central procurement from 29% to 52%.
Sector
Childcare
System Integration
PeopleSoft Finance
Users
700+
Invoices Processed
100,000+ per year
Customer Since
2018
How Proactis Helped
“The beauty of the Bright Horizons and Proactis partnership is that the system gives us the ability to automate invoice processing, while placing orders in different and more efficient ways. This not only adds value but enables us to see all invoices that come through, even those with no associated purchase order.”
Jen Moran, Head of Procurement, Bright Horizons
Achieved 100% spend visibility across the business, including full tracking of invoices with and without associated purchase orders
Processed 60% of invoices without AP team intervention immediately after go-live, through automated straight-through processing
Grew the proportion of spend managed by central procurement from 29% to 52%, with further growth planned
Significantly reduced administration time associated with processing 100,000 annual invoices, eliminating the paper-based manual workflow
Consolidated ordering from nine different websites into a single, standardised platform with pre-approved suppliers
Enabled 98% of users to access the system within the first two weeks, demonstrating rapid and successful adoption
Provided the agility to centralise procurement operations rapidly in response to Covid-19, ensuring business continuity across all nurseries
Improved governance, compliance, and SOX reporting through structured controls and automated workflows
Overview
Bright Horizons Family Solutions is a leading UK childcare provider with over 320 nurseries and a 30-year history of delivering exceptional early years care and education. With 100,000 annual invoices managed manually and no central procurement system, Bright Horizons implemented Proactis Purchase-to-Pay, Invoice Capture, and Marketplace across its entire nursery estate. Within weeks of go-live, 60% of invoices were processing without AP team intervention, and the organisation now has 100% spend visibility - with central procurement growing from 29% to 52% of total spend.
Challenge
Bright Horizons Family Solutions is a leading UK childcare provider with a portfolio of over 320 nurseries and a 30-year history of trusted early years care and education. As part of a wider business transformation, the Procurement team identified the need for a secure, centralised Procure-to-Pay platform to manage purchasing and supplier relationships across the estate.
With 100,000 invoices per year arriving with no front-end procurement system, each invoice was manually recorded on a spreadsheet, stamped, scanned, and sent to the relevant nursery - which then printed, scanned, and emailed it back. Nurseries ordered from nine different websites with no standardised process. There were no spend commitments visible, no ability to track invoices in the business, and a significant administrative burden on both AP and nursery teams.
The organisation needed to replace its manual processes with a platform that delivered spend visibility, order governance, supplier management, and invoice automation - whilst being agile enough to respond quickly to the fast-changing needs of a childcare business operating 320 nurseries every day.
Solution
Bright Horizons selected Proactis Purchase-to-Pay, Invoice Capture, and Marketplace - integrated with its PeopleSoft finance system - to transform procurement and AP processes across all 320 nurseries. The implementation was approached as a major change transformation programme, with representatives from Finance, Operations, Procurement, Marketing, and IT engaged to ensure organisation-wide buy-in.
The approach proved highly effective: 98% of users accessed the system in the first two weeks of go-live, with 11,000 orders raised across 15 spend categories in the first six weeks. Within the same period, 12,000 invoices were received and 60% were processed without any AP team intervention. Proactis also worked with the team to implement specific reports and processes to meet Bright Horizons' SOX compliance requirements.
When Covid-19 required Bright Horizons to consolidate operations and manage all nursery procurement centrally, the Proactis system enabled a rapid, controlled transition - ensuring all hub nurseries received the food, PPE, hygiene products, and consumables they needed, without individual nurseries having to place orders themselves.
“If we go back to before we implemented Proactis and look at what we wanted to achieve - we have complete spend visibility, we have improved governance and compliance, we have reduced the administration for the AP and Procurement teams and our nurseries, and we have flexibility to respond to changes.”
Jen Moran, Head of Procurement, Bright Horizons
About us
Proactis has worked with finance and procurement teams for 30 years. We know what the problems look like - and what it takes to fix them.
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We work with a network of trusted ERP partners who help you get Proactis running alongside your existing systems - and make sure it keeps working as your organisation evolves.
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