Quantaco Australia Take Advisory Services To New Heights With AP Automation Software
Quantaco Australia is a group of like-minded, independent firms focused on providing quality service to decision makers in business. In total, they have around 100 partners, and 750 or so staff located in most of the major metropolitan areas in Australia.
Quantaco have been using Lightyear with several hundred hospitality clients since 2018. We spoke with Anthony Sullivan, Lead Partner of their Hospitality Division to get the lowdown on how Accounts Payable Automation is helping them to better serve clients.
The Road To Embracing Accounts Payable Automation
Back in 2012, Quantaco started engaging with customers and other industry leaders to re-imagine what a modern accounting and advisory practice would look like. They quickly realised that Accounts Payable processing was one of the major burdens that impacted their client’s bottom-line as it was full of time consuming and error prone tasks that demanded huge amounts paper.
"The Lightyear approach to AP automation challenged the accepted norms, which first and foremost transformed the customer’s AP lives, but also allowed us as a firm to become incredibly efficient at working with the clients. That mindset of ‘change the way you do things’ resonated with us", shared Anthony.
How Lightyear Has Helped Level-Up Client Services
According to Quantaco, "every firm has their own way of providing services to their clients, and the services they offer are driven by the expertise of their team". Anthony shares that they are no different in that regard, but put a lot of effort into continually building out their own expertise in order to pass that expertise to clients.
"We continually train in new programs such as Lightyear, but also work closely with hospitality owners and managers to get a deep understanding of the challenges they face. Lightyear doesn’t only give Quantaco efficiencies, but it saves the client a lot of time and money, and that’s important."
For Anthony, it's about showing the client tangible benefits of a solution, "as soon as the client sees the immediate benefits of Lightyear to them, their buy in and adoption is guaranteed." In terms of the practical benefits of AP Automation, Quantaco has been able to take the weight of manual data entry off their client's hands.
"Lightyear’s data-extraction is so accurate, that neither we nor the client need to worry about data-entry anymore. The price-checking allows venue managers to keep on top of GP without spending hours checking off prices against a price list. And the approvals workflow means there isn’t paper-shuffling, and lost bills."
It’s a series of small things, that add up to a lot of efficiency gains when it comes to delivering additional value to clients.
AP Automation As An Affordable Solution For Clients
Quantaco have rolled out AP automation as an affordable solution to support hundreds of clients and the number of those making the switch is growing. There are tens of thousands of hospitality businesses in Australia, and whilst there are some notable success stories, the market is tough due to price rises, shaff shortages and many other factors.
"A lot of businesses are struggling, and to date the sort of expertise that Quantaco can bring to assist just wasn’t affordable to most. I would expect the number of clients using Lightyear to help manage costs to double in the next 12 to 18 months. There are are also Quantaco clients in retail and service sectors using Lightyear and benefitting from the ROI that AP automation delivers in terms of time and costs saved", explains Anthony.
Digital AP Processes That Mirror The Traditional
Anthony explains that in terms of AP processes, the actual workflow of a bill hasn’t actually changed much, but the speed and ease of processing has.
"Chefs still get kitchen bills for approval, Marketing Managers get marketing bills and so on. But they are now simply clicking an approval button on a screen instead of scribbling a signature onto a piece of paper. Those bills then get immediately transitioned to our team, for further checking and Sign-Off, before export into NetSuite and Xero".
"I think that is one of the beauties of Lightyear" says Anthony who confirms that the adoption of the new workflow is a breeze. Lightyear mirrors the traditional workflow of a paper bill through an organisation, but it does it without allowing paper to contaminate the process.
Line by line data extraction of Lightyear and the automatic GL-coding also allows Quantaco to get each row of bill data in the clients Accounting Software as opposed to just a summary, allowing for greater granularity from a GL-code perspective. But for Anthony and his clients, the main change is in speed as he notes that it is not uncommon for bills to be approved by venue management, and then appear in the accounting software on the same day. That allows clients to avail of early settlement discounts, which is another win.
Delivering Massive Time Savings and Insights
As a percentage of time, Quantaco clients are saving from 80% - 90%, which is comparison to the process to handling and processing paper bills on their behalf. However Anthony says that it’s fair to say that clients probably save around 80% to 90% themselves. Lightyear is eliminating the price-checking for clients, as well as the manual entry of stock into POS systems thanks to integrations with their hospitality specific tools.
Part of Quantaco's job is to get clients to be more efficient and better at understanding the details of their business; they aren't there to just report at month-end and do BAU tasks.
"Our job is made easier if the client has the knowledge and data in real-time to allow them to steer their business in a better direction daily. But, the ‘insight’ that delivers the most immediate benefit is the price-checking tool. Lightyear automatically price checks each product billed in real-time, flagging any overcharging to the person whose job it is to approve the bill" states Anthony.
Click And Connect Integrations With Client Software
Quantaco are proud to use any software if it makes sense for their clients. From NetSuite, through to Xero and MYOB, Lightyear integrates with most major software providers so that clients can avail of intuitive integrations and connected data.
In Conclusion
By reimagining traditional AP processes, Quantaco has not only alleviated the burdens of manual data entry but has also empowered its clients to focus on strategic decision-making and business growth. Through ongoing training and a deep understanding of their clients’ challenges, Quantaco has successfully integrated Lightyear's automation capabilities, resulting in significant time and cost savings.
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