University of Pennsylvania Health System

The Challenge

The University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) is a world-renowned academic medical center and consistently advances medical science through research. When its financial processes needed to be enhanced, UPHS implemented Chrome River to uncover valuable insights and increase automation.

UPHS initially implemented Chrome River EXPENSE with great success. Then it began looking for an INVOICE automation solution that would allow end users to create and submit invoices electronically, enforce compliance to business rules, and automatically route for required data entry and approvals prior to routing the invoice to accounts payable (AP). More times than not, AP would receive invoices that were missing required fields of data and that had not been approved. This caused AP to spend valuable time going back and forth to gather missing data and required approvals. Also, with a team that travels, a mobile invoice management solution was a top priority. Confident that Chrome River was superior to its competitors, UPHS selected Chrome River INVOICE to meet these requirements.

The Chrome River Solution

In addition to Chrome River INVOICE being easy-to-use, flexible and mobile, it met all of UPHS’s requirements. Chrome River INVOICE ensures that forms are compliant by enforcing all required data to be supplied prior to invoices being submitted to AP for payment. The solution also enforces review and approval by department leadership before routing invoices to AP.

Approval rules are built-in to route invoices to individual AP team members’ queues for payment. Chrome River INVOICE also provides the ability to ‘Approve’ or ‘Return’ invoices via email, including the ability to view supporting documentation and invoice data elements. Another reason Chrome River was selected was its easy integration with the Infor/Lawson financial system. As UPHS continues to grow in size and expand geographically, Chrome River will also streamline the consolidation of Payable functions.

Chrome River met all of our initial wants and needs. We received all the benefits without changing our processes, our business rules or user roles.
Steve Kelly, Director of Disbursements

The Results

The benefits UPHS enjoys from invoice automation are straightforward. Department users and invoice creators love the ability to track invoices through to the approval process. They also benefit from faster turnaround time of approvals and submission to AP for payment. Since its business rules are built into the software, out-of-compliance invoices are automatically returned to the submitter for clarification and then resubmitted— eliminating the ‘black hole.’ AP has automated all of its previously manual processes, freeing up time for higher-level initiatives.

Chrome River has streamlined UPHS’s processing of non-PO invoices—cutting the time spent on this task by more than half. The intuitive solution empowers end users and corporate staff alike. It has removed all of the non-value-add steps, which has freed up time to allow the Shared Services team to better support its clients. In addition to its flexible features and mobility, the ease of using Chrome River INVOICE is impressive.

We saw a reduction of over 50% in the time AP spent on processing non-PO invoices.