EH Smith is a UK builders' merchant whose previous supplier invoicing process was entirely manual. Staff were scanning and keying in up to 45 invoices per hour, a heavily time-consuming and labour-intensive task. Senior management decided an alternative solution was needed to quicken the process and improve relationships with valuable suppliers. The company's priority was a turnkey solution that would minimise internal time and cost during implementation. EH Smith approached a number of software vendors before selecting Open ECX's eInvoicing solution, based on competitive commercials, ease of supplier onboarding, and proven integration with their existing ERP, ERP One.
With staff scanning and keying up to 45 invoices per hour, the invoicing process was a significant drain on time and resource. Every invoice required manual handling, creating a high-volume, low-value workload that left little capacity for anything else. EH Smith needed a solution that would remove the scanning and keying entirely, integrate cleanly with ERP One, and make supplier onboarding straightforward rather than a project in its own right.
Staff were scanning and keying up to 45 invoices per hour manually, a volume that was unsustainable and left the team with no capacity for higher-value work.
The manual process introduced accuracy risk at high volume, with every invoice a potential source of error that required time to identify and correct.
