The solution comprises SAP B1 for finance and SAP Concur for expense and invoice processing, together with Business Process Automation (BPA) to integrate back office systems. The business intelligence suite BI360 from Solver Inc. was also selected to support reporting requirements.

The project provided an opportunity for Utmost to design a solution that would support its high-volume, journal-based business. Codestone supported the additional customisation required to ensure a comprehensive solution was delivered.

To obtain early benefits, SAP Concur went live first, supporting invoice and expense claims processing. A manual interface was put in place to the existing systems prior to completing the SAP B1 implementation. “The solution is now embedded in the business. Paperless processing of invoices and expenses provides significant improvements in efficiency and more compliance with corporate policies such as approval limits,” explains Charlotte Barham, Head of Finance at Utmost Wealth Solutions. “Production and despatch of sales invoices is much easier out of SAP; invoices are clearer, and we have better visibility of what we have billed for our services. We are now looking at the potential for rolling this out to other areas of the business that generate invoices.”

Interfaces to back office systems have been significantly improved using BPA. Volumes were limited to 18,000 records per file in the previous system. Now with SAP B1, there is no limit on the data volumes and batch runs can be scheduled overnight, preparing the business for each start of day.

Utmost now handles transactions in many currencies and up-to-date exchange rates are critical to its operations. SAP B1 now provides rapid upload of rates from market sources.