IFO Blog Spotlight shines on 2013 Innovation Award recipients

GUEST BLOGPosted by Jerry Garzon This Monday at Fusion 2013, we honored our members' brightest and most creative ideas with the Huntington Bank Innovation Award. This prestigious award recognizes the creative use of advanced technologies, tools, and processes in accounts payable and accounts receivable. "These winners and finalists exemplify the best-practice creativity that comes from some of the most forward-thinking teams in the financial operations profession," said Jo E. LaBorde, executive director of The Institute. The recipients of the 2013 AP award are: Anixter International - Accounts Payable Award Weyerhaeuser Company - Accounts Payable Award Working in partnership with Perceptive Software, Anixter saw a 100 percent ROI on initial costs associated with the intelligent capture solution during the first year. Today, all paper, email, and faxed invoices are converted into one unified, image-based stream of information. Weyerhaeuser, which was manually processing 600,000 invoices per year through various individual systems before integrating AP automatic solutions from ReadSoft, has since automated 50 percent of its invoice processing and reduced its cost per invoice by 47 percent. The recipient of the 2013 AR award is: Dot Foods - Accounts Receivable Award Dot Foods' position as a redistributor requires a complex business model in which customer short-pays can span multiple products for multiple reasons from multiple manufacturers. This created several inputs across different tools on Dot's side, as well as on the supplier side. With the assistance of ICG Consulting, Dot Foods developed a customized 24/7 supplier portal that would phase in several key features. Starting from scratch, Dot now averages 720 supplier users per month and has seen productivity rise by 107 percent over the past three years. Congratulations, winners, and a very special thank you from The Institute to all of our participants!