Esker, a worldwide leader in document process automation solutions and pioneer in cloud computing, today announced it is working with Jardiland, the leading French specialist and distributor of gardening and pet supplies, to automate its purchase-to-pay (P2P) process. Esker automates over 24,000 of Jardiland’s vendor invoices annually and just as many purchase requisitions. With Esker, Jardiland is able to achieve a tangible ROI in terms of time savings and productivity, as well as optimize its P2P cycle and accounting period closing.

Jardiland has been automating the delivery of their customer invoices with Esker since 2007, and following an internal reorganization in 2014, the company decided to also automate its accounts payable (AP) process, which includes 2,000 monthly vendor invoices from 80 different stores and services, as well as its purchase requisitions.

Jardiland has already achieved many benefits from automating its P2P process, including:

  • Invoices processed five times faster, a process which previously required 10 handling steps and took 12 minutes per invoice
  • Increased purchase order (PO) visibility to improve the purchase requisition process and monitor financial commitments
  • Accelerated financial closing periods from 10 business days to three business days
  • A single database of information for the different stores, services and accounting departments

“After having consulted with eight different solution providers, we selected Esker because they offered one of the only solutions on the market capable of reconciling vendor invoices and purchase requisitions, while completely integrating with SAP,” said Ann Favier, Vice President and CFO at Jardiland. “We were also impressed with the cost, implementation time, solution ergonomics and ease of use for our stores and accounting teams alike.”

Solution Implementation

Esker’s automation solution implementation is planned in two phases:

  • The first phase, already operational, applies to non-maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) vendor invoice automation and includes scanning, processing, validation, payment via SAP and data fed back into Esker’s solution.
  • The second phase will enable the processing of supplier invoices with POs, which includes purchase requisitions, validation, order creation and integration in SAP, notification of order receipt in Esker and fed back into SAP, and automatic reconciliation between orders and invoices for processing and payment.

“Esker teams apply an Agile methodology and demonstrate an excellent understanding of accounting problems,” said Favier. “The first phase of implementation was completed well within the two-month period originally planned. Immediately following the launch, our users were very pleased with the productivity gains and enhanced ability to estimate budgets. In just two days, we were able to catch up on 500 invoices!”

About Jardiland

Founded in 1973, Jardiland is the leading French specialist and distributor of gardening and pet supplies, with a network of nearly 200 stores, including 83 branches and a presence in Spain with eight points of sale, including six branches. The company offers a full range of products and services associated with gardening, pets and lifestyle and has 2,500 employees (5,000 including franchises). Jardiland achieved 744.7 million euros in 2014. The investment company L-Gam is its shareholder since January 31, 2014. Jardiland’s president is Thierry Sonalier.

About Esker

Esker is a worldwide leader in cloud-based document process automation software. Organizations of all sizes use its shared platform of solutions, offered on-demand or on-premises, to automate accounts payable, order processing, accounts receivable, purchasing and more. Esker’s solutions are compatible with all geographic, regulatory and technology environments, helping over 11,000 companies around the world in their efforts to Quit Paper™.

Founded in 1985, Esker operates in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific with global headquarters in Lyon, France and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. Last year Esker generated 58.5 million euros in total sales revenue.

For more information on Esker and its solutions, visit www.esker.com. Follow Esker on Twitter at twitter.com/eskerinc and join the conversion on the Esker blog at blog.esker.com.