University of West London sets the standard for invoice automation with Proactis

Challenge 

The University of West London is the top modern university in London for graduate employment, with more than 12,000 students and over 900 staff at campuses in London and Reading. The University operates a Value for Money Strategy to support staff in securing efficiency and effectiveness across all business areas. 

A small AP team of just three people was responsible for manually managing and processing over 10,000 invoices per year - a time-intensive and resource-heavy process that left little capacity for higher-value activities. The University was already using Proactis Marketplace for purchasing but recognised the opportunity to further automate its processes by extending the platform to cover invoice receipt and payment. 

The goal was to automate the full AP cycle without adding headcount, leveraging the existing Proactis relationship to deliver a single, integrated managed service spanning procurement and accounts payable. 

Solution 

The University extended its use of Proactis to include the Invoice Capture Managed Service - providing a single integrated solution covering both Marketplace procurement and automated invoice processing. The Managed Service ensures that existing and future invoice volumes can be handled without the need to expand the AP team. 

Working with Proactis, the time spent manually entering purchase invoices and handling paper-based exceptions was removed entirely. Document scanning and PDF import enable invoices to be received, intelligently data-captured, and automatically validated. Invoices are then automatically attached to the relevant purchase order, with alerts triggered for goods receipting and payment approval. Over 5,000 orders are placed annually through Proactis, with all related invoices flowing through the same integrated platform.