How CROP automates the entire AP process

To make its own financial administration scalable, CROP automated expense claim and invoice processing with Klippa SpendControl. Despite the rapid growth CROP has experienced since then, this still allows them to do the financial administration in the same number of hours.

First, processing expense claims and invoices was done completely manually, which created a lot of paperwork and long processing times. Wilma van Ekris, Senior FA Professional, describes the old process as follows:

“Because we have five offices and one central administration, everything was still printed out centrally and a stack of invoices went to the different offices by mail. The branch associate had to initial the invoices and then they came back. There were usually people driving back and forth taking the mail, but it took a long time to get it back. This could take up to 3 weeks, sometimes even longer.”

The expense policy created even more challenges: “We have a lot of leased cars and employees are allowed to submit fuel and parking receipts. Study expenses, which are quite a lot of invoices, may also be submitted. Once a quarter they received an expense report, to which all the receipts were stapled. Those were binders full and many mistakes were made with the VAT. That was a lot of correcting and counting. A tedious job.”

The following pain points were identified:

“I searched online for software that could integrate with Exact Globe. There are not many of those. In addition, the VAT of the receipts had to be processed properly. Then a number of others were dropped. In the end, we were left with two and ended up with Klippa because you were so approachable. With you, I immediately got someone on the phone who was knowledgeable.”

After getting a demo from one of our product experts, it was a done deal for Wilma. It had to be Klippa SpendControl.

“It was explained so clearly in the demo and it looked very user-friendly. It was also nice that all texts and communication were available in both English and Dutch.”

After a smooth implementation, the expense solution was launched in May 2019. Because it went so well with the expense claims, the module for processing purchase invoices was also started in June.

“I created all workflows so that declarations from a particular employee automatically go to the right person. At most branches, declarations go to the partner responsible. At one branch, the associate already has to approve so many invoices that there the expense claims go to the managers of the departments. Super convenient!”

In a similar way, CROP has automated its invoice processing:

“All invoices come to me and I upload everything. I set up the flows so that the right invoice goes to the right approver. First an invoice goes to the person in charge of a department, who approves the invoices and declarations of his or her team. Then it goes on to the associate of an office. At the end, I can book everything to our accounting program at the touch of a button.”

This way of working ensures fast and accurate processing of expense claims and invoices. At the same time, CROP maintains real-time insight into the statuses via Klippa’s clear dashboard.

“In the four to five years we’ve been using Klippa, CROP has grown significantly. But the same number of hours are still needed to process the financial administration. That does prove that everything is much more streamlined.”

The main benefits at a glance: