How Quant Services went from Invoice Process Confusion to Control

How does passion combine with change and financial processes to make business better? This story from Basware’s customer, Arman Farahbakhsh, Regional Financial Controller for Europe & Scandinavia at Quant, describes his poacher-turned-gamekeeper approach.

This is how he went from being a consultant for Quant, to working with them full time. As a result, they were able to find creative and innovative solutions that allowed them to control spend effectively, including through e-invoicing.

Where did it begin?

Initially, Arman saw the world of financial control from an outsider’s perspective. When one of the Big-4 accounting firms was hired to help Quant migrate financial and accounting services and systems, he realised there was the possibility for Quant to do so much more to improve process efficiency! So he moved from being a consultant at an external firm, to joining Quant directly, and started resolving the underlying purchase-to-pay issues troubling the company.

When he first started – this was the situation he faced: problems with processes and a lack of control of invoices. Find out, in his own words, whether the organisation had, in fact, adopted the advice that he had been providing, as an external consultant…

Where Quant started…

It didn’t take long for him to be able to change things, though. Today – they have key performance indicators to measure efficiency associated with late payments; the change of relative volume of invoice types; and the automatic matching of purchase orders. Listen to find out how long this has taken so far, what has happened with manual input, and how this has made him feel…

How things are looking now…

So how did Basware help?

Once Quant put an innovative solution in place, they used Basware’s services to help them remove a significant amount of manual work on a daily basis. Listen to the audio below to find out how they did it…

Cost and time savings

Now, the situation that he and Quant are in, has totally changed. The audio recording below, describes how they now have control over processes – which has allowed them to do far more, as a result.

We have control

What are the lessons he learned from this process?

The audio recording, below, describes how change is possible: in order to use solutions properly within an organisation, you need to gather input from many different parties – and then use all these sources to solve problems in a way that is unique to your organisation.

What Arman has learned

In conclusion: Change is a mindset:

Arman realised that change had to happen at Quant – but it was critical to bring all parties on board, to observe the opportunity to change, and to find ways to bring people together in order to embrace change. He has been able to do this at Quant, so far, and they have used Basware to help them take control of their financial processes, starting with e-invoicing.

It’s just the beginning of their journey, but it is a massive step in the right direction.

This is how he concludes what he learned from this journey: when change is perceived as an opportunity, rather than a threat, it can change society and this, in turn, can improve efficiency. Listen to the final recording to hear his thoughts on change...