After being with Esker for the best part of 9 years and being involved in developing the business of Esker’s Accounts Payable (AP) capabilities, I wanted to take some time to reflect on what the solution represents these days, why it is so much more than data capture & workflow technology, and to share my thoughts on the wider benefits that shouldn’t be underappreciated.

When I first started at Esker, there was heavy focus on messaging around data capture and particularly OCR, with removing paper from processes/workflows, and how Esker wasn’t restricted by templates or different structures of invoices – these were the key requirements for many customers.

Of course, these things still remain in the solution to date, given they effectively form the backbone of a successful AP automation solution – but today, a lot of the technology is centered around Artificial Intelligence (AI) as opposed to ‘true’ Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and ensuring high amounts of data can be captured from Day 1. There has been a definite pattern shift across to far more companies being reliant on electronic invoicing, through e-mail, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and utilising web portal capabilities.

The way the technology has evolved means that solutions like Esker’s can take care of a lot of the ‘heavy lifting’ when it comes to capturing data from invoices and removing manual touch points from users – which is great in terms of the instant value that Esker can add into AP processes. I would argue this has also seen a real shift in terms of what additional benefits the technology can bring to a user, in terms of aspects that are pertinent to their involvement in an effective AP environment.

The ability for enhanced visibility of the process is something that shouldn’t be undervalued and certainly something that is at the forefront of our technology. Easy to use dashboards and a wealth of reporting capabilities available as standard, mean that any user can easily deduce what is happening in their AP process almost instantly. I have had lots of conversations on how difficult this can be to achieve in some ERP systems, with ownership falling to IT as opposed to the AP user, meaning simple tasks take time and in some cases need to be paid for.

It might seem simple, but having this available in Esker as standard is of huge value, given relevant stakeholders in the process can gain a real-time understanding of where the process can still be improved further. Bottlenecks can be easily identified & resolved, which can serve to improve aspects such as strengthening supplier relationships with an efficient AP setup – a key driver for many senior leaders in the current climate.
User interaction is also a huge driver for any successful solution for sure. Esker has prided itself for many years on its user interface, ease of use/access and it’s intuitive look/feel – compared with legacy CRM or ERP systems.
Users are free to customise things to their own colour schemes and logos, and have freedom to collate dashboards, KPI’s and metrics that are required as part of their role.

From a licence point of view, Esker is unlimited in terms of users. It means that different levels within businesses can have access to the information that is relevant to them, without hassle. Managers can deduce reports , whilst AP users can have access to metrics on invoices awaiting their attention.

I wouldn’t be on topic without having to mention the impact of COVID and the pandemic in general. I have found that customers old and new have hugely appreciated the ability to seamlessly move to remote working, and for their teams to utilise dashboards as their central point of call, given the office hasn’t been available as a focal point. This has seen our mobile application (Esker Anywhereᵀᴹ) become more relevant than ever, allowing users to review their own metrics on the fly and also to approve invoices away from a traditional working environment.

It also has seen suppliers themselves consider their involvement in the invoice process, given AP departments have worked remotely, and so the usual office isn’t available to call to chase payments for instance. Engagement with vendor portals has certainly become more favourable, whereby they can gain access to the status of invoices, again in real-time.

Data capture and removal of manual touch points will always be a key component of any successful solution, but I like to believe that value lies in so much more than that, especially when considering user interaction, that can drive further success and engagement with the process. Esker allows stakeholders to be key drivers in improving their own process, above and beyond removing manual touchpoints.

I recently ran a webinar on this topic, including a demo of Esker’s Accounts Payable solution covering dashboards, reporting and our intuitive & customisable user interface. Please click here to view a recording of the session.

Dan Weston

Dan is a Business Development Manager for Esker UK. He has been part of the Esker family since 2013.

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Seems to be a recurring theme at the moment with me and issues when travelling places for work, and this trip was no exception.
All fine, albeit with a 5:30am start to catch the train and the customary delay on the railways, arriving into London a little behind schedule.

No matter though, the venue was a mere two stops away on the underground, so an easy connection one would think………
Signal failure on my line at the next station meant that the trains weren’t leaving on time, or not at all and the ones that were, meant that each train was absolutely packed full. Just what you want to start your day off!

Eventually though, I had made it and one thing I will say is that the event location was absolutely superb. Literally a minute walk from the Barbican underground station and I know a few of the attendees took the opportunity to walk from various other stations across the city, given it was an easy location to find.

It was great to meet Laurie Beagle and Lynn Christon (Directors of Forums International), who were there to greet me and help me setup for the day. The other attendees/speakers then soon started to arrive, (some of which had similar travel troubles to myself) and there was a great array of different companies and industries in attendance – all with great input on the various discussions that were in the morning’s workshop sessions.

I was able to have some really insightful conversations with some of those attending the forum, discussing various challenges they face in collections management and potential reasons behind it – which were very useful to use with my own experiences.

Dealing with export territories on a day to day basis from a technology point of view, you do get a feel of where certain challenges may lie, but it was great to learn more about the issues/concerns from other areas/viewpoints. The presentation given by #Marsh was particularly enlightening, in terms of the different locations and risks on trading in certain countries – a few of which seemed to be a common theme across different industries – which is always useful to know.

#Baker-Ing delivered a great session to kick-start the afternoon session, highlighting the various challenges when exporting & trading with different and “difficult” territories and why we need to be aware of these – but also how we can look to combat them. It was actually a really good segway into the session I was to deliver afterwards, approaching these challenges from a technology point of view and highlighting why we need capabilities that companies like Esker can offer, in order to have a successful collections process and to be able to trade with different countries – some of which could be hard to reach and culturally unique.

It was very useful for me to convey the reasons behind why technology is required these days to begin the collections process, with particular emphasis of the compliance element, that is required by law in many European countries, in order to invoice legally. This means that collections is now at the point where it effectively is reliant upon technology in some parts of the process – which is a key message and something I hope was clear during my session.

I like to think that the group saw benefit in what I was presenting and that there was some useful take-home messages that could be applied to help improve their own processes plus other benefits that they can look to implement in order to overcome certain challenges they are facing. It was great to get such positive feedback and share thoughts/ideas, particularly as it’s my first time speaking at one of these events.

All in all, my first time attending the forum was very insightful and I met with some great people, who I intend to stay in contact with. Excellent event that was well run by Laurie and the team at Forums International and I’m very much looking forward to attending and/or presenting again at the next one on 24th September in Warwickshire (assuming Laurie allows me back if my football team, Liverpool F.C. beats his team, Tottenham Hotspur in the Champions League final) .

Dan Weston

Dan is a Business Development Manager for Esker UK. He has been part of the Esker family since 2013.

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The only thing of course, in terms of travelling to different worldwide destinations, is that they can be a rather long way, and a pretty draining day at that, for someone who’s not the best traveller in the world.

Starting at 7am sharp with my “taxi” to Heathrow with my colleague Neil, we were off to a good start.

Heathrow in itself is a pretty cool place and after a quick breakfast, we were aboard the plane – my first time travelling with Virgin Atlantic. Like I said, I’m quite a nervous flyer, so I like to get my seat near the window and zone out with a couple of films or some music and generally just trying to relax.

Things didn’t exactly get off to the greatest start when I saw that someone was sat in my seat and that my ticket was a duplicate! I thought I’d lucked out and an upgrade was headed my way, but for some reason, they upgraded the guy with the original ticket and gave ‘my seat’ back to me. But now I was in and ready to settle down – which was made even sweeter when the steward handed me a free glass of champagne for the inconvenience – so not all bad!

We made it to NYC where we would catch our connection. On a good day we would have had 2 hours to connect. On this day though, we were 30 mins late arriving, so had 90 minutes to get through customs/re-check bags and board the next flight – what I thought was easily doable…

Having been the first time travelling to the states, Neil and I were left in the ‘first time ESTA’ queue – which stated that it was 1 hour to wait and get through customs. Having eventually made it through, we grabbed our bags and headed for the Delta stand. The guy’s reaction when he saw our location/flight said it all, and him saying “you gotta run, and you gotta run now”, meant it looked likely that our bags might make it to our final destination before us. (Just a note here, in that I would highly recommend travelling with Delta if anyone gets the chance, as they were superb) .

Now, I’m a young(ish) lad (shout out to my US colleague Nick Carpenter here for being the baby of the event and taking it away from me), but running through a hot airport after an 8 hour flight is not something I advise. After asking very nicely to to be moved to the front of the security line, we hot footed it to the far corner of the airport (of course the gate was miles away) to board our plane with minutes to spare.

Sunday’s arrival gave us chance to acclimatise and to take in our surroundings for the first time. I couldn’t imagine it being battered by a hurricane not so long ago – and the guys at our hotel have worked wonders to get it back to how it looks now. Apparently, a completely flooded basement and 10 feet of water in the lobby is what they had to deal with, which is crazy!

The first day was great with all the team together and over the next few days we were able to share content in terms of new solutions and the company performance. I found all presentations and meetings to be excellent and full of superb information, questions & take home messages. I’m particularly interested on how we are growing as a company and the development in areas such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotic Process Automation. I was able to have some very useful discussions around these topics too.

Really liked the breakout approach this year and focusing in on specific parts of each solution we have for both the Order-to-Cash (O2C) and Purchase-to-Pay (P2P) cycles. I was in the P2P stream myself which had some useful messages & points raised – and after speaking to the guys in the O2C session, they said that was full of interesting content too.

The final night dinner was a picturesque setting and a chance for Esker to celebrate another year of success. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was then time for us to head home.

An amazing and memorable trip and something I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to take part in learning, discussing and sharing ideas with colleagues from other Esker worldwide subsidiaries.

Can’t wait for next year, wherever it may be, and to celebrate more success!

Dan Weston

Dan is a Business Development Manager for Esker UK. He has been part of the Esker family since 2013.

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Every Sunday morning from September-April, I get up, come rain or shine, and spend time with a wonderful bunch of lads who I’ve had the pleasure of coaching the past few years. By no means are we taking the world by storm, but we have definitely grown as a team and improved in terms of ability. Off the field, it’s a pleasure to watch them grow as individuals as well as players, and again, I feel very lucky to have made some friends for life.

It’s all voluntary and something I do purely out of a love of football and passion for coaching, having studied the subject at university. It’s sometimes difficult to keep everything separate, especially on Monday evenings when I get changed at the Esker office, put my STFC hat on (sometimes literally) and then head straight to training and switch into my coaching mentality, ready for the evening’s session.

Whilst results are becoming more important as the team matures, I’m primarily tasked with the challenge of improving each boy from A to B in the hope that together we can improve the team. But how do I measure that? I have my experience in terms of knowing they have improved, but there is a huge demand for analytics in order to monitor performance as otherwise, everyone has to take my word for it.

Data and analytics are key at any level of football. At the elite level, the amount of analysis that goes on is quite staggering in terms of looking at the opposition, much like our customers want to gain competitive advantages over theirs by improving their own visibility and reporting on KPIs/metrics.

Even at the grassroots level that I coach at, without sight of the fundamentals of my season with the boys, other than what’s in my head, I would have no idea on the state of our improvement or where we are at in terms of development. Things like league tables, goalscorers, team sheets, fixtures and session plans are absolutely crucial to the season and monitoring player development.

Without these tools and having the visibility of the season and how we are progressing, it would make life incredibly hard, as it’s all pretty much guesswork.

Just like any process that our customers are looking to improve – it’s almost meaningless without any data or analytics behind it, given there needs to be some substance for what the solution is providing.
It’s ok knowing sales orders are being processed a lot quicker for example, but that in itself doesn’t tell you how many orders, for which customer, what format, level of priority, order number, order amount, line items etc.

That’s where dashboards and reports can give you an instant overview of exactly what is occurring at each stage of the process. After a game, I can access the league tables every weekend to see how we compare based on the results we’ve achieved. You then have a clear indicator of where you need to get to, in order to achieve the target, or whether you are there already and therefore can maintain that level.

Plus, I store all the session plans I create electronically so it’s easy for me to refer back to a past session, or for if I need pointers at any time, much like Esker storing documents in an archive for future retrieval.
Without that I have no record of the sessions I have delivered, how it went, and nothing to refer back to for guidance.

I know I’d be lost without the visibility I have at my fingertips if truth be told!

It’s actually crazy to think there would be a link at all between coaching football and document automation, but maybe they have more similarities than we think. Maybe that explains why, when I get home on a Monday evening, I sometimes feel like I’ve been at work for 12 hours!

Wouldn’t change it for the world though, even if the picture suggests otherwise.

Dan Weston

Dan is a Business Development Manager for Esker UK. He has been part of the Esker family since 2013.

Read more insights from Dan Weston