Basware automates procurement and finance for the city of Helsinki

BASWARE AUTOMATES PROCUREMENT AND FINANCE FOR THE CITY OF HELSINKI Basware’s Purchase Management and Invoice Automation Customer solutions have been catalysts for service center success: automated invoice and order matching has delivered Name a more streamlined organization, while increased trans- City of Helsinki parency has helped regulate and improve the competitive Sector tendering process. Public sector Location Back in 2005, the City of Helsinki Enter Basware and its Purchase Finland announced ambitious plans to manage Management and Invoice Automation all its financial operations from a solutions — systems that have allowed Challenge centralized shared service center. the City to automate processes and The challenge was to automate its manage the huge volume of trans- ■ Complex and costly entire procurement and processing of actions it oversees. Purchase-to-Pay processes the purchase invoices — over 560,000 ■ Over 560,000 purchase invoices worth over two billion Euros According to Harri Numminen, Service invoices processed yearly per year, from more than 12,500 sup- Manager at City of Helsinki, these ■ Lack of information pliers — to make this vision a reality. automated solutions had been eagerly transparency and awaited and delivered immediate accessibility impact: “Basware Invoice Automation is an important contributing factor in enabling process improvements Benefits and the centralization of operations in the service center.” ■ Vastly improved information transparency on the entire Purchase-to-Pay process While cost reduction and working Harri Numminen, Service Manager and practice improvements were key, the ■ Assured quality through Kari Gröndahl, Development Manager at Software as a Service City of Helsinki level of spend and the thousands of corresponding invoices demanded the ■ IT Resources freed to add additional value But public sector procurement is a highest possible levels of platform complex operation. Virtually all pur- stability, reliability and accuracy. chases are indirect, requiring specific To meet these goals the City took the sector skills (such as healthcare) decision to purchase the Basware making it a challenge to centralize. solutions on a Software as a Service Thousands of city officers in more (SaaS) basis. This arrangement means than 30 locations were placing orders Basware is responsible for the mainte- by phone and maverick buying was a nance and administration of the soft- fact of life. Control, purchase trans- ware — allowing City officers to focus parency and order tracking seemed on their core competencies. Critically, an impossible dream. with no maintenance or support Basware solutions requirement, additional IT budget and adopted resource is free to deliver projects that add value to the business. Basware Invoice Automation Invoice and Order Matching Basware Purchase Management The automated procurement solution is now used by around 6,000 city employees spread across thirty differ- Jorma Lamminmäki, Head of Procurement at City of Helsinki ent offices. Due to this high number of end-users it was essential the system was intuitive and easy to use. began to improve and comprehensive transparency and accountability Users search for products before became possible. creating a purchase requisition that is sent for approval. Following approval, Understanding of these processes has the requisition becomes an order, now evolved and competitive tender- HELSINKI which is then sent to the supplier. ing has become more efficient. Now Helsinki, the capital of When an invoice for the order is later up-to-date information on the City’s Finland, has a population thousands of purchases is available of approximately 564,000. received, the Basware Matching solu- It employs 38,000 people tion automatically matches it with the through the procurement center. spread across 35 departments. approved purchase requisition based Procurement is conducted by 6,000 employees on predetermined criteria. and 50 professional buyers Moving Forward located in 30 offices. Numminen comments: www.helsinki.fi With Basware a proven success, the “Basware solution is a functional City of Helsinki plans to match order prerequisite for the service center. and invoice with the contract — a move, Electronic order data is a great it is hoped, that will generate critical leap forward and each additional information to support competitive matching percentage delivers tendering and make it possible to link significant gains for the service payments to intermediate goals. center." Jorma Lamminmäki, Head of Procurement, concluded: Improving the Tender Process “When organizing public tendering, there is often little time for Basware is the global leader in purchase-to-pay solutions The City of Helsinki's procurement preparations and many demands. with more than 1,500 center concentrates on competitive After taking the system into use, customers and 850,000 users in over 50 countries tendering processes, drafting agree- transparency has been enhanced around the world. ments and providing offices with and tendering competitions have Basware solutions are distributed and implemented guidance on matters related to pro- become more systematic." in Europe, the US, and Asia- curement. Following the adoption of Pacific through an extensive network of Basware offices the Basware solutions, processes and business partners. www.basware.com © Copyright 27.08.2009 Basware Corporation Email info@basware.com to see how Procurement & Finance can benefit further.