Customer Story
Engel & Völkers
Centralising invoice processing with multi-SAP connection
- Enhancedefficiency
- Improvedvisibility
- Expeditedinvoice approvals
- Facilitatedarchive retrieval
Engel & Völkers, a global luxury real estate company, was founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1977.
CHALLENGES: Manual data entry slows productivity
A centralised Shared Services Centre (SSC) in Hamburg processes nearly 8,000 invoices per month from various countries and locations. The incoming invoices are posted in two ERPs: SAP® Business ByDesign handles the invoices from service providers and licensed vendors and SAP® Business One is used for the individual Engel & Völkers locations. In the past, this meant manually processing paper and email invoices, which proved to be time-consuming and offered little to no visibility.
This resulted in process inefficiencies, leaving Engel & Völkers staff feeling daunted by monotonous tasks that did not provide a sense of productivity. In addition to searching for a scalable cloud solution that would digitalise the accounts payable (AP) processes, simplify and harmonise workflows across locations and would integrate with both ERPs, the focus was also placed on reducing paper to support Engel & Völkers in their efforts to lower its carbon footprint.
SOLUTION: Combining two ERPs into one interface
An important criterion for Engel & Völkers’ AP solution selection process was that it would provide customisable workflows that could release invoices to either of the two ERPs, depending on the company code and ERP affiliation. Esker’s Accounts Payable solution met Engel & Völkers’ requirements and was ready to go live after just three months of implementation.
The company’s Finance Department and the SSC now manage both SAP ERPs, which are completely different technologically, and they can now be centrally operated in the Esker interface. Incoming supplier invoices are directly transferred to Esker for processing and approval, with the assignment of company codes and transmission to the corresponding SAP system performed automatically. Key invoice information is captured and Esker Synergy AI ensures that the data is posted to the matching supplier accounts.
The AP Department now uses email-based workflows, which can be individually customised and controlled for multiple management levels, amounts and company codes. All that is left for approvers to do is the final verification.
Once the invoices have passed the approval process, Esker transfers the data to the corresponding SAP system, where the invoice record is automatically posted. The respective SAP invoice number is returned to Esker’s solution and stored along with the invoice and transaction record in the audit archive for eleven years.
Esker’s Accounts Payable solution enables us to manage both functional and administrative processes from two SAP ERPs in one single interface."
RESULTS: Transforming supplier partnerships into strategic partnerships
Since the implementation of Esker’s Accounts Payable solution, Engel & Völkers and its partners have observed increased efficiency due to a significant reduction of manual data entry. Visibility over the status of each invoice was also greatly improved.
Additionally, invoices can now be quickly and easily approved with the simplified workflows before further processing in the ERPs. The approval process can be initiated centrally in the SSC and then released to the other locations thanks to the email-based sorting workflow. It is also much easier to locate invoices in Esker’s archive as well as in the ERPs as search criteria are now centralised, consisting of links e-stamped onto each document and its corresponding invoice.
Engel & Völkers has witnessed considerable added value, both for the company itself and its employees, as well as for business partners and suppliers. Creating these kinds of benefits was an important factor for Engel & Völkers when searching for an AP automation solution, and with Esker they have found exactly what they were looking for.
It was particularly important that the workflows could be customised to facilitate invoice approvals with both SAP ERPs."
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