Since January 2022, Feed & Food Group in Zeist has taken the Qbil-Trade / Kofax scan & recognize module into use. We spoke to Marcel Luiten of the finance department of Feed & Food about his experiences with this module.
 

‘We can no longer do without!’

What was the reason for your organization wanting to take this optimization step?

Previously, our invoices were provided with barcode stickers, after which we could scan the invoices to Qbil-Trade. That was a laborious process: first, print all invoices, then place the stickers and finally scan to Qbil-Trade. With the Kofax module that is no longer necessary. You don’t have to prepare anything with Kofax. It’s like we’ve been working with it for years, but we’ve only been live since January. That’s not even a year. But we can no longer do without it.

What is the biggest benefit for you?

Those barcode stickers had to be pasted at the office. We still work hybrid, so half at the office, half from home. The big advantage is that you can now work with this system from any location. So even when I work from home, I can book and process our purchase invoices. Ideal. With the scan & recognize solution from Kofax you do need an extra monitor. That is really a must. At home I use my notebook and another large screen. At the office I have three screens. Two large and one smaller screen so that I can still check my e-mail in between.

Does Kofax save you time?

It saves time, but you still have to check your invoices. That doesn’t go away. We do that in advance. So invoices for which there are questions then remain unanswered. You don’t include them in the process yet. And that’s really important because a wrong booking is a lot of work to fix. The process itself is a time saver. Kofax recognizes the invoices, but you have to help the system, especially in the beginning, to learn to recognize those invoices. It’s getting better and better.

‘The fact that we can work anywhere with this system ensures continuity.’

Large invoices with many line items, such as our transport invoices, on which flexible energy surcharges are also levied, are still manual work. Due to the energy surcharges, the amounts do not match. And such an invoice is 4 pages long. That remains work-intensive. But goods invoices are well recognised, which is already a huge benefit. We use Scansys for our overhead invoices. These are scanned directly into our Exact accounting software. Scansys does the same thing, but is not a learning system. Scansys is then quite rigid compared to Kofax. Kofax keeps getting better because it is a learning system. If you invest some time and effort in this, it will yield a lot of benefits.

How did the implementation go?

We are amazed that things are going so well. From the beginning, the implementation went very smoothly. I am very positive about that. A few things didn't go well right away but they were taken care of.
And in the beginning I did have to redo something twice. But that's all.

Do you have any tips?

It is useful to start from the new financial year. By numbering. This way the old numbering can be phased out. And you don’t have to work with two different numbers together.

Are there any other benefits?

It is a great advantage that Kofax is in the Cloud. You never need to download updates, because that goes automatically. And the fact that we can work anywhere with this system ensures continuity.

If I had to rate it from 1 to 10, I’d give it a solid 9.

Curious about our Qbil-Trade & Kofax AP Essentials module?

Please contact our sales or support department. Mail to info@qbilsoftware.com or call us on +31 (0)318 50 20 26