CP Hart

How CP Hart removed manual invoice processing and improved supplier compliance

Transactions processed every month

2,100+

Key suppliers to onboard

50

Additional headcount to manage growth

Zero

Industry

Construction

Product

Invoicing

Company size

£50m+ turnover

ERP

BisTrack

The Business

Founded in 1937, C.P. Hart is at the forefront of luxury bathrooms in the UK, with over 80 years of premium bathroom expertise and service. From traditional to contemporary bathrooms, they stock a range of products from some of the world's finest designers and manufacturers.Offering bathrooms to both customers and the trade, the business experienced significant growth in recent years, and was looking to increase the efficiency of their invoicing process. With increased sales, CP Hart's internal team had been struggling to keep on top of manually processing invoices. The operation was time-consuming and dragged staff away from focusing on value-added areas of the business.

The Challenge

In looking for a new solution, CP Hart prioritised the removal of manual methods and a seamless integration into their BisTrack back-office system. As sales volumes grew, the AP team found itself increasingly stretched by a manual invoicing process that was consuming time the business couldn't afford to waste. Errors were a constant risk, supplier queries were taking longer to resolve, and the team had little capacity for anything beyond keeping up with the volume of transactions.

Pain point 1

A growing invoice volume meant the AP team was constantly fighting to keep up, with manual processing leaving no capacity for higher-value work and creating ongoing error risk across every transaction.

Pain point 2

Suppliers were dealing with disputed invoices and uncertain delivery of their documents, adding friction to relationships that depended on smooth, reliable payment processes.

Through Open ECX's, we've been able to eliminate what was a non-value added and time-consuming task for our finance department. This has enabled us to redeploy the new-found capacity to manage our growing sales workload rather than make any headcount reduction.

Sam Tillin, Systems Administrator

The Solution

The Open ECX electronic invoicing solution allowed C.P Hart to reduce costs, increase efficiency and streamline business processes without having to alter their existing BisTrack back-office system. The automated system matches invoices to orders, significantly reducing the time spent processing invoices manually. The solution has introduced automation to CP Hart's way of invoicing and greatly improved compliance levels.

The solution also provides benefits to suppliers, including certainty of invoice delivery, a reduced number of disputed invoices, and the receipt of more accurate order information. The only requirement for CP Hart's suppliers is the ability to create a PDF invoice. The Open ECX system does the rest, automatically validating and converting the invoice data. From C.P. Hart's perspective, these documents are received and processed as if they were conventional EDI data files and fed directly into their BisTrack system.

How it worked

1

Suppliers send PDF invoices to Open ECX. No technical changes were required from any supplier, regardless of their size or existing capability.

2

Open ECX validates and converts each invoice automatically, matching it to the corresponding order before passing it into BisTrack exactly as if it were a conventional EDI data file.

3

The integration with BisTrack required no changes to CP Hart's existing system setup, allowing the team to go live without disruption to their operations or their suppliers.

The Outcomes

Manual invoice processing was removed entirely from CP Hart's AP operation. The team no longer spends its time on data entry, compliance levels improved, and the number of disputed invoices from suppliers dropped as data accuracy across the process improved significantly.

Suppliers benefit too: they have certainty that invoices have been received, fewer queries to handle, and more accurate order information to work with. The whole supply chain runs more smoothly, and CP Hart's team has the capacity to focus on work that actually moves the business forward.

Outcome 1

3,500+

Invoices processed every month

Outcome 2

Zero

Additional headcount needed to manage growth

Outcome 3

Fewer

Disputed invoices for suppliers

See what Open ECX does for your AP team.

Book a 20-minute demo and we'll show you the numbers.

Book a Demo See all Case Studies