SAGE To Gain Control And Visibility Of Project Spend With Purchase-To-Pay Software

Published 29th November 2007

Proactis P2P Helps Publishing Giant Manage Production Costs, Improve Supplier Relations and Remove Administrative Burdens...

Wetherby, UK, 27th November 07 - Proactis, the Spend Control Company, today announces that SAGE, the world’s leading independent and academic publisher, has chosen its flagship spend control solution, Proactis P2P (purchase-to-pay), to automate the procurement processes and gain control of spend.

Proactis P2P will enable SAGE’s production department to ensure that all spend related to the production of books and journals is approved at the point of order and can be tracked from the initial request right through to the final invoice payment. It will also help the department to categorise spend according to the project with which it is associated, approve this in the context of corresponding budgets and provide management teams with valuable spend analysis reports.

Nik Patel, Systems Accountant at SAGE, comments: “Across our entire UK operation, we receive over 100 invoices a day and this will only increase as the company grows. The administrative burden of processing these on a manual basis is immense and, because spend is not usually approved until the invoice is received, it has traditionally been difficult to achieve any real control. Our initial implementation is in the production department, before rolling out to all departments in the UK and, ultimately the US.”

Neil Feingold, Managing Director at Proactis partner, Alphagen, explains: “The complexity of spend in production is high. SAGE needed an intelligent view of all costs, from project management and editorial fees to printing and binding expenses, for each and every publication they produce. PROACTIS P2P provides that.”

Terry Wilcox, commercial director at Proactis, concludes: “The time and cost savings SAGE will achieve with Proactis P2P are clear, but the real value comes from the management information it will provide. The Alphagen team was able to seamlessly integrate Proactis P2P with SAGE’s existing financial system, which is one of the elements of the solution that makes it a spend control solution, not just an ePurchasing system.”