Encore Environmental Services offers services related to circular economy, recycling, and waste management across Finland. The vast majority of their purchase invoices are from hundreds of subcontractors who carry out the necessary transportation. Automating cost allocation labeling of these invoices is challenging as descriptions of invoiced services vary across subcontractors. Using Accode, Encore was able to iterate forth a set of rules that covered the vast majority of cases while effectively managing exceptions.

Validation before implementation

The initial objective of Encore was to automate 50% of their manual purchase invoice processing in Basware but the feasibility of this was unclear. Using Accode sandboxes Encore was able to quickly iterate forth a ruleset with which they could confirm the objective was reached before having to build costly integrations between systems. In addition to this, Encore was able to address issues with the data that had not been known in advance such as deletion of “invoice total” rows and solving minor rounding differences between row totals and invoice total.

The sandboxing functionality of Accode allowed us to quickly test that our solution worked before implementing expensive integrations between systems

Anders Lundin, System Manager at Encore Environmental Services

Growing internal automation competence

Moving from processing data on a one-by-one basis to rule based mass-processing requires a significant amount of experimentation and learning. Using Accode, Encore has been able to carry out the vast majority of experimentation themselves, allowing them to continuously build automation competence internally. This has allowed Encore to quickly and self-sufficiently test and implement solutions for the vast majority of challenges that arise in production usage. Encore are particularly happy with the reduced reliance on vendors combined with their increasing understanding of their own processes.

Solving technical challenges through subcontractors is slow, expensive, and prone to miscommunication. With Accode, I’ve been able to solve most issues by myself within hours

Anders Lundin, System Manager at Encore Environmental Services

Expanding beyond the initial scope

The initial objective of processing 50% of invoices automatically was reached directly upon moving the automation solution from testing into production. However, Encore quickly noticed that Accode could be used to automate significantly more than they had initially anticipated. Encore grew the automation rate to 65% within the first two months of production usage, far exceeding the initial objective. Being very satisfied both with the speed of delivery, production usage and support in general, Encore is now looking into other internal processes where Accode could provide significant value.

We have been able to achieve significant cost savings within a few months. I would also highlight that most of the tedious manual work has now been automated.

Maarit Kiiskinen, Business Controller at Encore Environmental Services