Basware helped Carlsberg get rid of paper invoices and virtually eliminate postal costs

Carlsberg Denmark sends around 45,000 paper invoices every month – previously, mostly by post. When posting fees doubled, they decided to ramp up their e-invoice rate. With Basware, they went from 48 % to 96 % e-invoicing in less than two years, making significant yearly savings.

Espoo, Finland, 23 October 2017 – Basware, the global leader in networked purchase-to-pay solutions, e-invoicing and innovative financing services, has helped its long-term customer, Carlsberg Denmark, to improve their e-invoice rate from 48 % to 96 %.  With Basware’s e-invoicing solution Carlsberg not only responded to their customers’ requests for a digital invoicing solution, but also saved a significant amount of money.

“At the beginning of 2016, fees for posting printed invoices doubled. We could see that if we did nothing, our postal costs would double in a short amount of time,” says Credit Manager Liselotte Frost Christensen from Carlsberg.

Basware’s e-invoicing solution gave Carlsberg an integrated solution and allowed them to outsource their printing.

“It is a simple solution: we wanted to send an email to a customer as a PDF attachment – we have a lot of small customers, single-owner companies and we didn’t want to make it too complicated for them. Basware was able to offer that,” Frost Christensen continues.

The email delivery service is part of the complete invoicing process involving end-to-end data files. It allows Carlsberg to increase the share of electronically delivered invoices among those recipients who are not able to receive e-invoices in more advanced formats using the integrated, automated output of structured data.

“We’re happy that we’ve been able to transform so many customers to email. In the old days when customers received a physical letter, the credit management team would have received a lot of queries asking for a copy of their invoice that may have been misplaced. They received maybe 100-150 calls a month. Now, this has reduced to around 50 calls per month,” Frost Christensen explains.

Thanks to the integrated nature of Basware’s solutions, Carlsberg sends all invoices via the same connection and in the same way. Basware delivers them as e-invoice, email invoice or via a printing and postal service, as required.

“Through having visibility of what’s going through our system we don’t have uncertainties anymore. For example, previously we wouldn’t have known if our customer did receive a reminder. Now it’s in on the portal. It’s very easy to keep track of what has happened.”

Increased visibility into the whole invoice flow comes from the fact that Carlsberg are sending their entire invoice volume via a single channel. They are no longer sending emails from Outlook, printing invoices with one service provider, and sending e-invoices using another provider. All the data is in one place.

When asked what she’s most proud of, Frost Christensen says, “I would say turning e-invoicing around to 96 % in quite a short time. It has been a very good exercise illustrating that we can optimize our processes and collaborate across departments for the benefit of our customers. This project is a good example of cost reduction, which at the same time benefits the customers. However, none of this would have been possible without the Basware e-invoicing solution underpinning everything."

About Basware 
Basware is the global leader in providing networked purchase-to-pay solutions, e-invoicing and innovative financing services. Basware’s commerce and financing network connects businesses in over 100 countries and territories around the globe. As the largest open business network in the world, Basware provides scale and reach for organizations of all sizes, enabling them to grow their business and unlock value across their operations by simplifying and streamlining financial processes. Small and large companies around the world achieve significant cost savings, more flexible payment terms, greater efficiencies and closer relationships with their suppliers. Find out more at www.basware.com.

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