City of Wolverhampton Council transforms to 'No PO, No Pay' with Proactis
Wolverhampton Council implemented Proactis Invoice Capture, reducing suppliers from 25,000 to 7,000 and automating invoicing with a ‘No PO, No Pay’ policy.
Sector
Public Services
Residents Served
250,000+
Employees
4,500+
System Integration
Unit4 Business World
Customer Since
2015
How Proactis Helped
“Local authorities have had less funding over the last few years. I would say there is a political and financial need to streamline and improve the way in which we work. Having been able to do the proof of concept pilot that we did with Proactis, I was able to evidence what could be done, compared to where we were.”
Darren Herries, Head of Services Finance, City of Wolverhampton Council
Successfully introduced a 'No PO, No Pay' policy, improving invoice quality and compliance across the supply chain
Reduced the supplier base from over 25,000 to fewer than 7,000, improving financial visibility, reducing administration costs, and mitigating risk
Delivered a fully automated end-to-end invoicing process, replacing paper-based manual handling across all 70 devolved services
Provided real-time visibility of where invoices are in the process, enabling the team to respond promptly to supplier payment queries
Enabled purchase orders to be raised and sent electronically, with automated invoice matching on goods receipt
Delivered meaningful spend reporting capability, supporting budget management and a more streamlined year-end accrual process
Integrated seamlessly with Unit4 Business World, combining the strengths of both platforms in a unified P2P workflow
Reduced late payments and improved supplier relationships through faster, more reliable and transparent invoice processing
Overview
City of Wolverhampton Council serves over 250,000 residents, employs more than 4,500 staff, and provides 70 services across the region. Operating from a legacy IBM mainframe with a paper-based, highly manual invoicing process, the Council worked with Proactis to implement Invoice Capture integrated with a newly deployed Unit4 Business World system. The transformation introduced a 'No PO, No Pay' policy, reduced the supplier base from 25,000 to fewer than 7,000, and delivered a fully automated end-to-end invoicing process - providing the spend visibility, control, and reporting capability the Council had long needed.
Challenge
City of Wolverhampton Council is the governing body of the City of Wolverhampton, serving over 250,000 residents with 70 devolved services spread across a large geographical area. The Council employed more than 4,500 staff and was operating an ageing IBM mainframe finance solution that had grown organically over many years, resulting in an extremely resource-intensive and paper-based invoicing process.
Payment runs took place twice a week. Each invoice had to be date-stamped, signed, checked against a batch header, and manually entered into the finance system before payment could be made - an incredibly cumbersome and time-consuming cycle. The Council also maintained a supplier master file of over 25,000 records, many of which were inactive, and purchase order usage was minimal and ad hoc. Invoices frequently arrived without a PO number, causing them to bounce around the building before reaching the right budget owner, resulting in late payments and no visibility of outstanding commitments.
With funding pressures intensifying, the Council identified an urgent need to automate its finance processes, introduce proper purchase order controls, and gain meaningful visibility of what was being spent and with whom.
Solution
City of Wolverhampton Council engaged Proactis to implement Invoice Capture integrated with a newly deployed Unit4 Business World finance system. The project was initially piloted with core commercial suppliers as a proof of concept, enabling the Finance team to evidence the benefits achievable before rolling out more broadly.
Proactis Invoice Capture uses optical character recognition (OCR) to scan and lift data from incoming invoices, removing manual data entry from the process. Purchase orders are now raised and sent electronically; when goods are received, the system is marked as receipted and Proactis scans and matches the incoming invoice automatically. For exceptions - such as where an order value is exceeded - automated notifications are generated and managed as required.
Crucially, the solution enabled the Council to introduce a formal 'No PO, No Pay' policy, communicated directly to suppliers as a means of streamlining the payment process and ensuring they were paid more reliably. The Council also used the implementation as an opportunity to rationalise its supplier base from over 25,000 to fewer than 7,000 active records.
“For me, efficient operations are the ability to measure what's been spent against what was expected and what's been ordered. To be able to track invoices and identify how long it takes to pay them gives us a great idea of what we can do to address challenges. In the old way of working we didn't have that.”
Darren Herries, Head of Services Finance, City of Wolverhampton Council
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