The John Lewis Partnership to cut the cost of invoices with Itim

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The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) is implementing Didos, a specialist invoice matching engine from retail solutions specialists Itim.  To be used by both John Lewis and Waitrose from February 2012, Didos is a single invoice processing system that will enhance the Partnership's invoice processing at its new business service centre in Bracknell - a move that will significantly cut costs and improve efficiency.

JLP wanted to overcome technology restrictions and implement a single invoice processing system to combine its operations and benefit from the automated functionality that Didos provides.

As well as the significant increase in automated processing which will be available using the powerful Didos Automatic Query Resolution tools, JLP also hopes to achieve an improved automatic (unattended) invoice approval rate, full visibility of future payment liabilities, management and recovery processes for overcharged invoices, and comprehensive performance reporting to identify areas for improvement in upstream and downstream systems.

James Wyper, GFR Invoice Matching and eInvoicing Lead at Partnership Services, the business services division of JLP, comments: "We selected Itim for both its functionality and its cost-effectiveness. It has a strong heritage in the retail world, and works with similar retailers to us both in terms of their nature and size. Since signing the contract with Itim in June 2011, it has already met our expectations with strong support, and we have a very high degree of confidence in the project ahead of next year's launch."

Wyper continued, "The Didos solution from Itim has a range of benefits which feed through to efficiency gains in our business.  Although it will take some time to measure the precise financial impact of these, we will expect greater automation in Financial Processing teams, improved information on root cause of invoice mismatches and improved internal process control, all of which translates to delivering improved customer service."

Ali Athar, Chief Executive Officer, Itim comments: "Didos matches, processes and moves documents at an unsurpassed rate, and is designed specifically for retail. Not only will it allow JLP to process the high volume of invoices they receive in an efficient and seamless manner, it also features multi-document matching and the ability to match-up line level. If there are any discrepancies in an invoice, line matching identifies where the problems are and can seek to resolve them all this without JLP having to do anything".