Police Authority reduces processing costs and improves spend control with Proactis Purchase-to-Pay

Challenge

The Authority is one of the largest police authorities in England and Wales, employing approximately 10,000 staff across eight divisions and 35 departments, each managing its own budget. Annual spend on indirect goods and services - from interpreters and stationery to uniforms and multi-million pound contracts - totals around £100 million.

Prior to implementing Proactis, the Authority had no computerised process for requisitioning. With 15 different methods in use for raising orders - from post-it notes and phone calls to emails and verbal requests - there was minimal auditability and limited visibility of committed spend. Invoices were manually entered into the Infor SunSystems finance system with no automatic routing or approval workflows, making the process both slow and resource-intensive.

The Authority required an end-to-end spend management solution that would impose essential controls over purchasing, deliver full cost-base visibility, automate inefficient processes, and integrate with SunSystems - whilst being accessible and easy to use for 10,000 non-procurement staff across 35 departments.

Solution

Following a trial roll-out in one division, Proactis P2P was extended across all eight divisions and 35 departments, with 80% of staff using the system within 12 months. The highly configurable platform was tailored with customised order templates and approval workflows to reflect the different ordering and authorisation requirements of each department.

Staff can access in-house categorised supplier catalogues and punch-outs to supplier websites directly from their workstations, with the system automatically routing each transaction through the appropriate approval workflow. Goods and services are receipted in Proactis on delivery, enabling automated invoice matching and significantly reducing manual effort in the Accounts Payable function. Employee expenses are also processed electronically through the platform.

A corporate stores function was also implemented to manage uniform orders previously handled through a standalone system with no link to the financial ledger. Proactis now tracks each officer's entitlement and prevents over-ordering, while the full audit trail provides clear accountability across the stores function.