Customer Story
Helios
Transforming the way finance teams work by automating supplier & promotional invoices
- Greatervisibility into outstanding supplier & promotional invoices
- Streamlinedaccount closing & provisioning
- Greateragility in accounting
- Fasterapprovals, controls & accounting
- Facilitatedremote work
Founded over 100 years ago in Valladolid, Spain, Helios Group is specialised in the manufacturing of jam, tomato-based condiments and preserved fruit. Today, Helios Group comprises multiple companies with eight production centres and sales offices in Spain, France, the United Kingdom and Germany, as it continues to expand into new markets.
CHALLENGES: Improving the efficiency of invoice processing
In 2018, Helios Group’s financial department wanted to improve the visibility of certain financial processes in order to streamline accounting, shorten invoice processing times and speed up searches for digital files.
Digitising invoices was easy, however creating a process for managing the workflow through integration into their SAP system required more time and effort. The primary objective was to reduce process complexity by analysing the documents to be processed. Several workflows were identified: 15,000 invoices from Helios suppliers and another 22,000 from its production subsidiary Iberfruta. The promotional retail invoice workflow was automated as well, comprising 9,000 promotional invoices for Helios and 250 for Iberfruta.
SOLUTION: Choosing technology that offers flexibility & enhances visibility
When selecting an accounts payable (AP) automation solution, Helios identified key criteria such as: the ability to function independently of its SAP ERP, cloud-based operation to support remote access, an approval workflow specially tailored to the company's activities and a mobile application enabling invoice approvals from anywhere. Process visibility through customisable dashboards with real-time indicators was also extremely important to enable fast and accurate accounting..
Esker's Accounts Payable solution met all their conditions and was implemented quickly. Thanks to the solution's user friendly interface and ease of use, user adoption was immediate and the learning curve extremely short.
"Esker gets high marks for its project implementation and launch," said Mercedes Soto, CFO at Helios Group. "Their CX team was extremely useful and provided a lot of functional support."
Our finance teams are happier because they are now able to spend more time on higher-value tasks and have greater control over what is happening in real time.
Esker gives us the visibility we need into the supplier and promotional invoices we must account for each day, and this allows us to close accounts faster and provision them correctly and in a timely manner.
RESULTS: Increasing team & customer satisfaction
Since implementing Esker’s solution, Helios' finance and accounting teams have had a much better day-to-day work experience that includes significant time savings. Everyone can now focus on tasks that bring more value to the company. Staff value the experience of agile accounting, greater control and higher process visibility.
With numerous approvers in both Helios and Iberfruta plants throughout Spain, the validation process was lengthy and complicated. Electronic approvals reduced the invoice processing time by up to 20%. The benefits won't stop there, since additional approval processes are currently being automated and will deliver further advantages to the company.
Because financial management operations are governed by strict payment and reporting deadlines and by mandatory settlement and audit processes, the pandemic could have easily created havoc at Helios. However, Esker’s solution allowed those that were not able to come to the office to easily connect to the AP solution remotely and approve invoices anytime, anywhere!
Esker helps us make the best use of our time, control our budget better and perform approvals quickly and easily.
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