Diversity

Commercial Feature
85
An accounts payable
solution that fits the bill
In the never-ending hunt to cut the costs of business, Irish
company InShip has come up with a solution that fits the bill.
BY CIAN MOLLOY
There is just one requirement
to move to InShip’s automated
accounts payable solution. Your
suppliers just email you your invoices.
No scanning needed. “We’ve researched
this area and it will save you up to €2
per invoice,” says the company’s founder
and CEO, Adrian Kelehan, who is an
accountant by profession. For more
than 20 years, Kelehan thought that the
traditional way we deal with suppliers’
bills and statements is too cumbersome
and costly. According to a number of
studies, the cost of generating and
processing a paper invoice can be as large
as €6 from the day it is generated to the
day it is shredded six years later.
“I thought there had to be an easier
way. So Dr Kevin Casey, Glenn Murphy
and myself, with help from Enterprise
Ireland, developed InShip – a web-based
accounts payable solution.”
Works with any accounts package
“If you are using an accountancy package
like Sage, Quickbooks, Xero, TAS, Big Red
Cloud or Surf, for example, you can just
bolt Inship on to that,” he added. “We have
developed InShip to integrate with all
major accounts packages and during the
development process, we worked closely
with accounts companies – even forming
a partnership with Big Red Books. InShip
is flexible enough to be adapted to all
accounts packages imaginable. “You can
even use it as a stand-alone creditors’
ledger if you are a small business.”
As InShip is a cloud system, users can
also access their records from anywhere
in the world.
Our clients have
been really appreciative
of InShip. They love
how everything is in
one place; no need
to look for missing
invoices... everything is
just a click away.
Full flexibility
The first time InShip receives an email
from a supplier, the customer decides
what data they wish to extract from that
supplier’s invoices along with defining
rules on how they wish to process that
suppliers invoices.
Statements are automatically reconciled
Every subsequent email will then be
automatically processed by the system,
allowing you to avail of InShip’s many
features throughout: PO matching,
statement reconciliation, autoforwarding
for approval and electronic
archiving. “Traditionally, processing
a paper-based invoice was a 10 step
process,” says Kelehan. “With InShip, it’s a
one step process – an invoice is submitted
and InShip takes over automatically.”
Watching for price increases
The system will generate automatic alerts
if it detects unauthorised price increases
or if an invoice is short and you are being
billed for goods or services that have
not been delivered. InShip is also fully
scalable and can perform within almost
any business size, be it large or small. “Our
typical customers are bricks and mortar
outlets with a regular supplier base. Some
of our clients have as little as 30 invoice a
month but we also have clients that are
processing more than 1,000 invoices a day
automatically with InShip.”
No capital expenditure
InShip is software as a service, and is paid
for with a monthly subscription based on
a client’s usage volume. A small business
using InShip to process 100 documents
or less will pay just €20 a month
whereas a large corporate processing
500 documents a month will pay €80 a
month plus a 15c per document overage
charge. “We currently have more clients
in Ireland than anywhere else, although
some of our larger clients are based in the
UK ,” says Kelehan. “Our clients have been
really appreciative of InShip. They love
how everything is in one place; no need
to look for missing invoices, no need to
chase up invoices to be approved and as
for audits and tax inspection, everything
is just a click away.
“Within many companies, if you want to
find a paper invoice processed in the last
two years, you need to grab a ladder to go
looking through stacks of drawers in the
back room, I’ve experienced that.” says
Kelehan. “With InShip, you can find an
invoice in seconds. It’s not just a question
of cost, InShip is also about reducing the
hassle and the headaches.”
www.accountancyireland.ie