Cedar Foundation Supercharges Their Accounts Payable Processes By 88% With Lightyear

Cedar Foundation is a non-profit organisation in Northern Ireland that supports people with disabilities, autism and brain injuries to work and engage in their local communities. Cedar Foundation's Head of Finance, Claire Keating, reveals how Lightyear's digital workflows have drastically reduced invoice processing times and resulted in an 88% efficiency boost.

Before implementing Lightyear, they had a paper-based process that was extremely time-consuming and labour-intensive. They needed a cost-effective solution that would help reduce the time spent chasing approvals and manually entering data into their accounting software.

By implementing automation, they have drastically reduced costs, processing, and approval time, allowing Cedar Foundation to enhance transparency and enjoy complete oversight enabling effective decision-making on the more important aspects of the non-profit.

80% Decrease In End-To-End Invoice Processing Time

Cedar Foundation, like many non-profits organisations, have multiple approval touch-points and large supplier numbers. With manual processing, this means documents require physical sign-off and a lot of paper ending up on people's desks resulting in days of wasted time.

According to a report by Ardent Partners, end-to-end manual invoice approval for non-profits takes 10-16 days in the UK. Cedar Foundation's experience reflects this, with a 15-day processing time for a single invoice before automating.

With Lightyear, their approvals take less than 3-days. The team can now focus on meaningful tasks instead and achieve their goals faster.

"Our Finance team love Lightyear. It is easy to use, and the customer service is excellent. We now have visibility of invoices received and moving through the approvals process for the first time." - Claire Keating, Head of Finance.

93% Decrease In Manual AP Processing

Because of the complex and manual nature of their accounts payable processes, the Cedar Foundation team were spending +30 hours per month entering data. This repetitive task not only hinders productivity, but also increases the likelihood of human error.

By adopting accounts payable automation, they reduced their manual processing to less than 2 hours. As a result, the team experienced a significant increase in productivity, whilst eliminating human error almost entirely.

AP Costs Reduced By 20% With Automation

According to the Institute of Finance and Management (IOFM), the average cost to manually process a single invoice in the UK is between £12.00 and £20.00. For businesses with many suppliers and hundreds of invoices, this presents a costly problem.

Cedar Foundation needed a cost-effective solution that would be both reasonably priced and be able to provide them with the sophisticated automation they required. Since implementing Lightyear, they have been able to claim back over 20% of their monthly purchasing and accounts payable costs.

Non-profits processing as little as 10,000 invoices per year could spend upwards of £200k on processing costs alone. With Lightyear, Cedar Foundation pays just 79p.

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Accounts Payable Efficiencies Increased By 88% With Automation

The Cedar Foundation team increase their efficiency by 88%, thanks to the introduction of an almost touchless automation solution for their purchasing and accounts payable functions.

The reduction of time wasted on manual data entry, lengthy approvals, and tedious end-of-month tasks, such as statement reconciliation and 3-way matching have been prominent contributing factors to such a dramatic change.

According to Ardent Partners, the average efficiency increase for most organisations when implementing accounts payable automation technologies is 51%. Lightyear has helped Cedar Foundation achieve an incredible 88%; their team are now more efficient than ever, enabling the organisation to grow.

‘'Lightyear came at the right time. Their team was ready for a digital solution and, as such, put every effort into ensuring its success. '’ - Claire Keating, Head of Finance

By implementing Lightyear, Cedar Foundation was able to automate their purchasing and accounts payable processes, resulting in significant time and cost savings. The accuracy and efficiency of the processes also improved with real-time visibility of procure-to-pay functions, resulting in improved relationships with suppliers and decision-making.

Overall, by automating with Lightyear, Cedar Foundation has achieved an average of 20% savings on monthly purchasing and accounts payable costs, a 93% reduction in manual data processing, an 80% reduction in end-to-end approval time and a massive 88% increase in efficiencies