Receipt Entry – Case Study

1. Executive Summary

To improve the efficiency of its Accounts Payable (AP) process, our client required a faster and more reliable way to record goods received before supplier invoices could be processed. Manual receipt entry was time-consuming, created bottlenecks, and caused invoice matching errors within the AP workflow.

An intelligent automation solution was developed to automate receipt entry into the IFS Cloud platform. Operating primarily over weekends, the solution validates receipt data, processes thousands of records with built-in quality checks, and prepares the system for invoice processing before the working week begins.

The automation now processes approximately 1,650 receipt records in as little as five hours, eliminating delays, improving AP success rates, reducing manual effort, and removing the need for additional recruitment. Following its initial success, the solution has been expanded from a single site to multiple operational sites, with further rollout planned.

2. Client/Organisation Overview

Our client is a leading infrastructure services provider delivering projects across the utilities, energy and infrastructure sectors. The organisation manages large volumes of purchase orders and supplier deliveries across multiple operational sites.

To maintain efficient financial operations, goods received must be accurately recorded within the IFS Cloud ERP system before supplier invoices can be matched and processed through the Accounts Payable function. As project volumes increased, the manual receipt entry process became increasingly resource intensive and created delays throughout the wider finance operation.

3. The Challenge

Before automation, receipt entry was completed manually by operational teams throughout the working week. Employees downloaded receipt spreadsheets for each site, entered received quantities into IFS, and validated every transaction individually.

This manual approach created several challenges:

• Receipt entry often took an entire working week to complete.
• Delays prevented the Accounts Payable automation from successfully matching invoices.
• Invoice processing generated unnecessary exceptions where receipt information was unavailable.
• Large volumes of repetitive data entry consumed valuable employee time.
• The organisation was considering recruiting additional staff simply to keep pace with receipt processing demand.

The business required a solution that could eliminate these bottlenecks while maintaining complete data accuracy.

4. The Solution

A robotic process automation (RPA) solution was developed to automate the receipt entry process within the IFS Cloud platform.

The automation collects weekly receipt files submitted by each operational site and processes them automatically. Built-in validation logic ensures that receipt quantities are checked against available quantities before entries are made, preventing incorrect transactions from being posted.

Additional validation features include:

• Quantity availability checks
• Row-by-row validation against IFS
• Automated exception handling
• Success, skip and failure status reporting
• Comprehensive audit logging

The solution was designed specifically to support the Accounts Payable automation, ensuring receipt information is available before invoice processing begins. This significantly increases the success rate of downstream AP automation while reducing manual intervention.

Initially deployed for a single site, the solution proved highly successful and has since been rolled out across multiple sites.

5. Implementation

The automation was initially developed and deployed for one operational site before being expanded across additional locations following successful testing.

Each week, operational teams complete receipt information between Monday and Thursday. On Friday, the automation retrieves the latest files and begins processing. It continues running automatically until all records have been completed, pausing and restarting when required to accommodate system scheduling.

During implementation, the automation was further optimised following our client’s migration to IFS Cloud. Improvements to the processing logic reduced transaction times dramatically, increasing throughput while maintaining high levels of validation and accuracy.

The scalable design now enables additional operational sites to be onboarded with minimal configuration, supporting continued expansion across the organisation.

6. Results

The automation delivered significant operational improvements across both receipt entry and Accounts Payable processes.

Operational Results

• Processes approximately 1,650 receipt records in as little as five hours.
• Reduced processing time from approximately two days of automated runtime to around five hours following optimisation.
• Reduced individual transaction processing time from approximately three minutes per row to under one minute.
• Eliminated the need for employees to spend the working week performing repetitive receipt entry.
• Removed delays between receipt entry and Accounts Payable processing

7. Conclusion

The Receipt Entry automation has transformed how our client manages goods receipt processing across its operational sites. By automating a repetitive and time-consuming task, the organisation has eliminated processing delays, improved Accounts Payable performance, reduced resource requirements, and delivered faster, more reliable financial operations.