Metro Shipping target 70% 'no touch' AP automation rate for their global roll out following a successful pilot

Introduction 

Founded 40 years ago, Metro Shipping has grown to become one of the UK’s leading privately owned logistics providers.

For several decades, Metro managed its business using an external ERP system which it gradually augmented with custom-built extensions. However, as the company continued to expand, it realised that it had outgrown this platform, and decided to migrate to a new transportation management system (TMS), CargoWise.

The Challenge 

To streamline the processing of accounts payable (AP) invoices, Metro was using an automated document processing solution to match invoice line items to the relevant jobs in their incumbent ERP system.

The company wanted to implement a similar capability for CargoWise, but integration with the document processing solution proved to be a problem. Moreover, the solution used a batch processing model, which meant that users often had to wait until the next day to find out whether their invoices had been matched and processed correctly.

Selecting a Solution

Through contacts in the freight industry, Metro was introduced to several vendors of invoice automation solutions. Shipamax proved to be the most compelling option because of its real-time integration with CargoWise, its ability to onboard new suppliers without specific configuration, and its user-friendly interface.

Running a successful pilot

Metro began by piloting the Shipamax solution at a subsidiary company, which was the first company within the group to roll out CargoWise.

As Shipamax is a cloud-based solution that is designed for easy integration with CargoWise, the technical aspects of the project were straightforward, and the implementation was completed in less than two weeks.

The intuitive Shipamax UI helped to ease the transition, offering a substantially faster and easier way to capture and match supplier invoices than CargoWise’s default interface, which relies on manual data entry.

Fast supplier onboarding

Unlike many invoice automation solutions, Shipamax does not use templates to capture data from invoices. Instead, it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to identify the relevant information on each page, extract it, and match invoice line items to accruals in CargoWise.

Because the AI is capable of generalising what it has from previous examples, it can even process types of invoices that it has never seen before with a high degree of accuracy. This means that Metro can onboard a new supplier without making any specific updates to its invoice automation process—saving time and reducing effort.

Rapid efficiency gains

While the initial implementation at its subsidiary company covers only a relatively small proportion of Metro’s business in the UK, the results have been very positive. In the customs brokerage division, for example, the straight-through processing (STP) rate for supplier invoices now stands at above 90%.

The freight forwarding supply chain is a more complex use case, and they are currently seeing STP rates of up to 35%, but the company anticipates that this figure will rise to around 70% when Shipamax is more widely adopted across the Metro group where there are stronger processes in place to estimate costs.

Insight drives improvement

Beyond the immediate operational gains from invoice automation, the Shipamax solution also provides insight that helps Metro make incremental improvements in both its internal accruals processes and its interactions with suppliers.

For example, in one case, Shipamax helped the team identify an issue where a supplier had changed their accounting system and introduced a bug that affected all their invoices. By enabling Metro to spot the consistent inaccuracies and realise that this was a systemic issue rather than a user error, Shipamax made it easier to flag and address the problem early, avoid rework, and build a better supplier relationship.

Looking to the future

As a next step, Metro is focusing on completing its groupwide CargoWise rollout, which will include introducing a much larger group of users to Shipamax. When the rollout is complete, Shipamax is expected to handle in excess of 9,000 AP invoices per month.

As the company continues on its journey, it is working closely with the Shipamax team to feed back requirements, suggest new features, and test the latest functionality. Together, Metro and Shipamax are eager to push the boundaries of invoice automation and build a truly best-in-class solution.

If you're interested in learning more about automated document processing in logistics, read our latest guide on the topic, which includes the benefits of document automation software for shippers.