Powering Accounts Payable Processing with Epicor ECM
The Morristown Utilities Commission (MUC) is a broad-based utility service company. MUC provides power, water, wastewater, and broadband services to approximately 25,500 customers in the city of Morristown, Tennessee, and surrounding utility districts that spread into Hamblen, Grainger, and Jefferson Counties.
MUC was looking to streamline its Accounts Payable processes and partnered with Epicor partner Mosaic Corporation in early 2019. The firm specializes in helping organizations transition from paper-based, manual workflow processes to more efficient automated paperless workflows that drive efficiency, lower costs, and scale infinitely. Since then, Mosaic Corporation has worked with MUC to re-envision its AP processes with Epicor ECM AP Automation. The software enables organizations to capture, route, approve, and integrate their AP operations, and work smarter with real-time access to invoices—from anywhere on any device— realizing significant productivity and cycle time improvements.
The move to Epicor ECM AP Automation has modernized MUC’s AP operations, which had been heavily paper-based and manual in nature. Previously, PO and non-PO invoices were shuffled among the organization’s 150 employees and 7 different worksites for approval via interoffice mail. Many of these invoices involved manually orchestrating a 3-way match process, where the receiving ticket was matched up with documentation from three separate stacks of paper. Once the paper chase and the dust had settled, the information was then manually keyed into MUC’s Microsoft Dynamics GP system. As a final step, the hard copy paperwork was laid to rest in the appropriate file cabinet.
Today, the complete AP process at MUC has been digitized. With non-PO invoices, vendors email invoices to an AP email address; Epicor Intelligent Document Capture automates the capture of invoice content, eliminating this labor-intensive and time-consuming process. An email is then automatically sent to the individual(s) responsible for approval. Once the invoice is approved, the AP group pushes the approval into Dynamics GP for payment.
With a PO invoice, the process is similar, however, Epicor ECM AP Automation also completes the three-way match process based on the record of what has been received in Dynamics. Invoices are safely and securely electronically stored, indexed and available for easy reference after the fact.
MUC selected the Epicor ECM AP Automation solution and next looked for a proven partner that was experienced with using the technology to support digital transformation in the utilities sector. Mosaic Corporation satisfied all these criteria. An Epicor ECM Gold Partner, Mosaic works to implement and improve paperless processes via its expert consulting services, tools, and training.
What do I love about Epicor ECM? No paper. As a municipal entity, we have to abide by specified retention requirements for documents. In the past we to manually find documents stored in bankers’ boxes with ‘destroy by’ dates. We can now dispose of documents quickly and easily, without digging through dusty boxes.
“Mosaic was fantastic. They hit the ground running and within a month we were ready to do testing,” said Brandon Stubblefield, Controller at the Morristown Utilities Commission. The Mosaic team worked with the MUC AP clerks to understand various nuances and make tweaks to the system to align workflows. Mosaic developed this workflow to feature 30-40 different logic steps around Microsoft Dynamics using eConnect, the set of integration tools and APIs that allow for seamless third-party integration into Dynamics GP.
With Epicor ECM AP Automation, MUC is now processing 200 invoices a month. Productivity improvements enabled MUC to reduce the number of employees tasked with handling AP operations by 50 percent – from 2 to 1 Full Time Employee.
Many invoices now flow through the AP approval process via straight-through processing with very little human intervention required, and the time needed to process invoices has been significantly reduced.
We had five or six lateral file drawers originally allocated for storage of invoices and documentation. Since we started using Epicor ECM AP Automation, those file drawers have remained empty.
During the Covid-19 pandemic transition to remote work, electronic document access and workflows were key. “We were so fortunate to have Epicor ECM AP Automation in place during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns,” recalled Stubblefield. “When everyone had to work from home, all the bills were paid.”
Additionally, Stubblefield says digitization has had another key benefit; auditors haven’t had to come on site in over two years, as MUC can package all its Epicor ECM AP Automation records up to send to auditors electronically.
“What do I love about Epicor ECM AP Automation? No paper,” he said. “As a municipal entity, we have to abide by specified retention requirements for documents. In the past we had to manually find documents stored in bankers’ boxes with ‘destroy by’ dates. We can now dispose of documents quickly and easily, without digging through dusty boxes.
“We had five or six lateral file drawers originally allocated for storage of invoices and documentation. Since we started using Epicor ECM AP Automation, those file drawers have remained empty,” said Stubblefield.