Oracle streamlines cloud-based accounts payable system, cuts close time by 30%

The Oracle Source-to-Settle (S2S) team manages all purchasing, accounts, and expense report reimbursement processes across Oracle globally. Annually, the team’s more than 500 employees process billions of dollars in invoices and payments across five international centers.

Oracle S2S oversees a wide variety of complex workflows, including contract negotiation, sourcing and supplier relationships, supplier due diligence, and intercompany payments. The team relied on a variety of disconnected systems and processes to oversee Accounts Payable (AP) tasks.

To make the overall AP process work more quickly, and with greater visibility and efficiency, Oracle S2S decided to take advantage of an enterprise-strength cloud infrastructure running a full suite of business applications.

Oracle S2S decided to fully leverage Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Cloud Applications including Oracle Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Oracle Cloud Supply Chain Management (SCM), and Oracle Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM). The team needed Oracle’s proven enterprise-level functionality, security, and scale. An all-Oracle stack and workflow would reduce manual work by suppliers and team members without sacrificing financial controls, accuracy, or security—all while simplifying maintenance and management.

Using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and Oracle Cloud Applications, Oracle S2S automated, connected, and accelerated end-to-end AP processes—from the streamlined creation of invoices to the execution of workflows that support bank validation and supplier payments.

The single global payment platform delivered a variety of demonstrable improvements for both external and intercompany payments processes. After the migration, 96% of the payment volumes were no-touch. And for 51% of all transactions, there was no manual intervention whatsoever, all the way from invoice reception to final payment.

Additionally, Oracle S2S uses the platform’s global reporting capabilities to reduce monthly AP time to close by 30%, saving 240 hours annually. Team members also perform a soft close that allows them to detect any AP problems in advance.

The new integrated and efficient Oracle stack enables greater volumes of monthly and annual transactions than previously. Annually, the system eliminates 11,000 processing hours and registers a 15% increase in payment batching speed. This allows the global AP platform to drive US$16 billion in 174,000 supplier payments.

Electronic invoicing levels rose 7% since go-live, cutting 6,160 hours from the annual invoicing process. Currently, 68% of all invoices are received digitally, enabling a 5,000-hour reduction for intercompany invoice processes. The team now clears US$3 billion in 1,600 intercompany payments.

Additionally, Oracle S2S also reimburses US$103 million for 462,000 yearly expense reports, saving 2,080 hours. Because the system is elastic, it can also recognize and process custom invoices and unique payment requests.

Fully embedded financial and transactional controls help create accurate reconciliation processes. The system flags any discrepancies between purchase orders and authorized payments, and pays out only spend-approved invoices. The Oracle stack also supports segregation of duties among invoice and payment analysts, with quarterly audits to bolster security best practices.