Huws Gray Cuts Out Paper Invoices Thanks to Its Atlas Ebusiness Solution

One of the largest independent builders merchants in Wales and North West England has removed paper invoices from its supply chain – thanks to an ebusiness solution from Atlas Products International.

Huws Gray manages a large supply chain, now numbering more than 1000 individual businesses which generates more than 10,000 invoices each month, historically requiring a labour and paper intensive administrative system.

Says Operations Director Elfed Hughes: “We were receiving an average of 500 paper invoices each day, which absorbed four members of our purchase ledger team in a slow and wasteful process, which was not a viable option.”

But Huws Gray now uses Atlas’ fast, secure and reliable message exchange software, automating the exchange of business documents between its systems and those of its trading partners. Atlas is focussing on Huws Gray’s trading partners generating the most invoices, as the first stage of a phased programme that will ultimately automate all exchange of documents between the company and its suppliers.

Incoming invoices are now processed electronically and those that are accurate are forwarded to the back office system as authorised for payment to terms, whilst suppliers whose invoices do not match orders or have other errors are informed electronically and invited to correct any errors and resubmit.

“It’s been a revelation for us,” says Elfed Hughes. “The repetitive and time consuming daily effort has been replaced by an automated system with management tools that allow us to keep an eye on what’s going on. Atlas has been liaising with our trading partners to ensure that the implementation of our new system has been smooth, dealing with any issues that crop up between our EDI and back office systems.

“Atlas is a really committed partner giving us a great service, essentially taking care of everything for us. A process that used up valuable hours every day has now been replaced by a service that takes just a few minutes of our time. Our hope is that, with Atlas’ help, we can extend the number of suppliers who deal with us through EDI and increase the percentage of invoices processed electronically and efficiently.”

Michael Latimer, Atlas VP Group Sales commented: “We are delighted that Huws Gray is deriving such great benefits from its Atlas solution. This is another clear example of how Atlas ebusiness solutions remove paper, drive down cost and increase productivity and efficiencies for all of our customers.”

In a little over 20 years Huws Gray has grown from a single branch on the island of Anglesey to become the largest independent operator in Wales and North West England, employing over 450 people with an annual turnover of £80 million.