30% More Efficient and $2500 Saved/Month: SWD Group’s AP Automation Story
Specialised Wholesale Distribution (SWD) is an Australian automotive aftermarket business operating under the SW Group. The group comprises three specialist entities: SWD Australia, the group's wholesale distribution arm, Redback, its manufacturing brand, and Tag, its tag and towing manufacturing division. Together, they operate across the full product lifecycle, from sourcing raw materials and buying stock overseas to manufacturing finished goods and selling through trade channels.
With a 12-person finance team, managing 1000+ invoices every month isn't a back-office afterthought at SWD. It's a function that has to keep pace with a high volume of invoices and multi-entity operations running on Pronto ERP. When SWD Group set out to find an AP automation solution, they weren’t starting from scratch. They were seeking a better system than their current one (which was expensive, lacked functionality and provided subpar customer support). That’s when they sought out Lightyear.
Stuck With The Wrong AP System For Far Too Long
For years, they'd been using an AP automation platform. Initially, they believed it was the best on the market, but soon realised it wasn’t.
“7 years ago, we started using an AP automation system that we thought was the best available solution at the time, but soon after, everything just fell apart. I still remember the discovery session with their team. They treated it as if we were implementing a brand-new ERP system. It was incredibly complicated.” said SW Group’s CFO, Andri Rusbawono.
Once it was running, the team quickly realised something uncomfortable: it was actually faster to enter invoices directly into Pronto.
“When we first implemented the old system, my AP team felt that entering invoices directly into Pronto was quicker. The system was very clunky and expensive.”
The issues stacked up: a fragmented workflow, no mobile app access, and very long response times from customer support.
“There were consistent errors, and every time we needed a change, we had to raise a ticket and wait 24 to 48 hours for someone to come back to us.”
When the contract finally ended, SWD went back to the market to look for a better automation solution.
“Most systems want you to sign the contract before they even give you a demo. We dealt with that for four and a half years, paying top dollar without even realising it. When the contract finally ended, we went back to the market, looking for a better AP automation, and that’s when we found Lightyear.”
Our previous AP automation system was very unintuitive and expensive.
From Clunky to Cloud: AP Automation That Works
“Instead of locking us in a contract before even understanding our problem, the Lightyear team just said: ‘Give us your sample data, and we'll show you what we can do’. Compared to our previous server-based system, Lightyear AP automation is more intuitive, faster, and most importantly, it's cloud-based.”
Within a matter of weeks, the onboarding and integration were complete, and SWD was live on Lightyear.
“I was amazed that it was so seamless. Even though there's no automatic API with Pronto and we ended up using a flat-file integration model, it worked really well.”
Since implementing Lightyear, the impact on day-to-day AP has been immediate.
“With the old platform, my AP team had to go into a separate OCR system, push it to a document management system, and then the approver had to log into that platform to approve it before anything reached Pronto. With Lightyear, you just email the invoice in and approve it. That's it.”
Managers receive mobile notifications and can approve invoices on the go — something the previous system simply couldn't support.
“What's changed about approvals is the speed. Lightyear is mobile-ready, so managers now get a notification on their phone and can click through and approve invoices on the go.”
After four and a half years of fixed costs that never moved regardless of volume, Lightyear helped SWD with a pricing model that actually reflected how they operated.
“With the old system, there was never any adjustment on pricing as our invoice volumes came down. Lightyear is a very different model. It charges you by document, meaning costs decrease as invoice volume reduces. You don't worry about user licences because it allows unlimited users without any charge. This means we can scale the team without increasing the cost.”
Lightyear is a value for money and functionality. I think we made the right choice.
30% More Efficiency. $2500 Savings. A Happier Finance Team.
Compared to the error-prone nature of the old system, Andri rates confidence in data entering Pronto from Lightyear at close to perfect.
“Compared to before, I'd rate our data accuracy at between 9 and 10 out of 10.”
With two dedicated AP staff handling around 1,000 invoices per month, the team is now processing the same volume in significantly less time.
“My team is at least 30% more efficient now. They're actually taking on more work than I've assigned to them. That says it all.”
For SWD Group, the savings aren't just on the balance sheet.
“It's really hard to put a number on the quality of work, but compared to the previous system, we save about $1,900 a month on face value, and when you factor in efficiency gains, it's closer to $30,000 per year.”
When asked if Andri would recommend Lightyear to other similar businesses, he said:
“I would put Lightyear as a strong consideration for anyone in the market. My team is very happy they ditched the old system for Lightyear. It's easy to operate, and you can customise user access and approver permissions exactly as you need.”
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