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South Ayrshire Council chooses ReadSoft to centralise and streamline its Oracle-based accounts payable department

Document Automation specialist to automate processing of up to 150,000 invoices

Milton Keynes, 8th March 2010 - South Ayrshire Council has chosen ReadSoft, a leading global provider of software solutions for Document Automation, to centralise and streamline its accounts payable department. 

As part of its commitment to becoming the most improved local authority in Scotland by 2011, South Ayrshire Council will centralise its accounts payable function, speed up invoice processing and further improve business efficiency by using ReadSoft DOCUMENTS to help achieve this goal.

The Council currently processes a total of 150,000 invoices annually from over 7,000 suppliers and relies on around 130 accounts payable sections to manually input every invoice.

Using the ReadSoft solution, South Ayrshire Council will electronically capture every invoice on the day it arrives, transferring it onto their Oracle E-Business Suite immediately. 

ReadSoft DOCUMENTS for Invoices will then automatically validate those invoices, reducing the time taken for approval and speeding up payment, meeting a key objective of the Council’s modernisation and improvement agenda.

Councillor Robin Reid, Portfolio Holder for Resource and Performance said: “The Council is on an improvement journey and we are actively working towards achieving efficiencies in our procedures and operation while still delivering high quality and enhanced services”.

Jeff Atkinson, the Council’s Chief Systems & Development Officer commented: “The fact that ReadSoft DOCUMENTS is specifically designed to handle electronic invoices, can capture supplier invoices from the outset and seamlessly integrates with our Oracle estate really appealed to us”. 

Simon Shorthose, Managing Director, ReadSoft said: “Sharing essential services such as accounts is one of the major ways that the UK’s 437 councils can streamline operations”.

“The short term benefits are immediately evident with increased efficiency and productivity but in the longer term an automated system will speed up and improve the accuracy of annual accounting audits, making a usually arduous procedure pain free.”

“An automated invoicing system will also help the Council adhere to the Scottish Government’s payment targets for SMEs.  By instantly uploading all invoices onto the Oracle E-Business Suite, South Ayrshire can avoid late payments to its SME suppliers, helping them to better weather the current economic climate.”

For additional information, please contact:
ReadSoft UK
Sarah Courbet, UK Marketing Manager, ReadSoft
Phone: +44 1908 688018
sarah.courbet@readsoft.com

Sarah-Anne Bray, Wildfire PR
Phone: +44 208 339 4420
readsoft@wildfirepr.co.uk

About ReadSoft

Established in 1991, ReadSoft was first to bring free form technology for invoice processing to market and first to achieve certifications to ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle.  ReadSoft has become the global technology leader, with operations in 15 countries, partners in an additional 70, and thousands of customers on a global basis.  ReadSoft is proud to have the largest and most innovative development department in the industry, with professional services to assist customers and partners on a global basis.  ReadSoft's vision is to free businesses everywhere from manual document handling. For more information about ReadSoft, please visit www.readsoft.com.

About South Ayrshire Council

South Ayrshire Council is one of 32 Scottish local authorities providing a comprehensive range of services to a population of over 112,000 people in the south west of Scotland.

The Council serves a large rural area of 422 square miles (1,222 square km) extending from Troon and Symington in the north to Ballantrae and Loch Ryan in the south, including the towns of Ayr, Prestwick, Troon, Maybole and Girvan.

The Council has a clearly defined Improvement and Modernisation Agenda and aims to be the most improved local authority in Scotland by 2011, while making South Ayrshire the most dynamic, inclusive and sustainable community in the country.

For more information about South Ayrshire Council please visit www.south-ayrshire.gov.uk