LXR Luxury Resorts & Hotels is a dynamic collection of hotels and resorts dedicated to an entirely new definition of luxury. From bustling urban centers such as New York and Los Angeles to timeless resort locales like Boca Raton, Telluride and Montego Bay, they offer exceptional experiences and extraordinary memories. Each location received its own invoices that needed to be coded and signed. At the end of each week, the invoices were batched together and shipped to another company for scanning. A business process outsourcing company then retrieved the scanned images, validated the signatures and keyed the invoice data into Epicor, LXR's ERP system. Only then were the invoice images available in a search and retrieval application for end users.

"The turnaround time to scan the invoices was too long. Because of the delays, it was taking us two to three weeks to have the information entered into Epicor. The time lag, along with a lack of visibility over the status of individual invoices, made our month-end accrual reporting difficult to complete," said Ed Weiss, Vice President of Financial Services at LXR. The company started to evaluate other scanning options and wanted to implement a new search and retrieval solution. They weren't planning on utilizing a complete accounts payable automation solution until they learned more about ASPEN 360 Accounts Payable Edition from Archive Systems.

ASPEN 360 Accounts Payable Edition is an on-demand solution that automates the AP processes by combining industry best practices with ZeroTouch™ AP imaging and workflow. "By turning to ASPEN 360, we realized that we would gain more control over our entire accounts payable process. In addition, we would be able to transition invoice imaging from the back end to the front end, which eliminated weeks out of the review and approval of invoices," Weiss added.

LXR's vendors now send invoices directly to ASPEN 360's Invoice Virtualization Center for document conversion and data capture. The invoices are then routed electronically to the appropriate person for approval based on existing business rules. ASPEN 360's SmartRouting streamlines the movement of the invoices by intelligently knowing where they need to go next. Once an invoice meets final approval, the information is transmitted directly into Epicor for payment.

LXR was previously outsourcing 25,000 invoices per month, so they had limited AP staffing. When they brought the process back in-house using ASPEN 360, they were still able to process all the invoices with the same staffing levels. "The transition to ASPEN 360 largely meant a redistribution of work among our users. The administration time is minimal. Three people spend less than four hours per day combined to route unassigned invoices to the point of contact at each location, add or modify users, and update or maintain tables," Weiss said.

In addition to gaining control over the AP process, LXR was able to reduce the cost per invoice by over 55%.

"The change to ASPEN 360 from our prior invoice processing flow was a big improvement for our property users. They no longer have to spend time looking for delayed or missing invoices, and ASPEN 360 provides them the tools to efficiently code, approve and research invoices. ASPEN 360's automated workflow tools have significantly improved our controls over invoices and reduced the amount of time required to get invoices ready for payment," added Weiss.