Waitrose and John Lewis cut the cost of invoices

Following a successful Didos rollout for UK grocery chain, Waitrose, its sister company John Lewis is now rolling out the specialist invoice matching engine from retail technology specialist Itim. 

Didos was introduced at both John Lewis and Waitrose as a single goods for resale (GFR) invoice processing system to enhance the John Lewis Partnership’s invoice processing, and significantly cut costs and improve efficiency.

The invoice matching engine automatically approves most invoices for payment, eliminating supplier overcharges and providing controlled methodologies for handling any invoicing and receipting errors that may arise. 

John Lewis Partnership (JLP) wanted to overcome technology restrictions and implement a single invoice processing system to combine its operations and increase efficiency through the automated functionality that Didos provides. 

Simon Fulford, project lead analyst at Partnership Services, the business services division of JLP, said: “The rollout of our 3,500 Waitrose suppliers was extremely successful last year and we are now in a position to migrate our John Lewis suppliers to the new system. We have been piloting a small number of John Lewis suppliers over the last three months and have processed a large number of their invoices through the system over this short period.”

Fulford continued: “The implementation so far has gone smoothly and we are extremely happy with the ease of use. Didos is proving to be a great improvement to the way we handle invoices in and out and is living up to what Itim promised it would deliver. We have a real appetite to get this rolled out to all remaining suppliers across both divisions."

He also reported: "We are experiencing a significant reduction in time spent processing invoices and the feedback we have had from the administrators is very positive considering they were using systems that had been in place for over 15 years. Using Didos will translate quickly into bottom line benefits across all areas of the John Lewis Partnership.”

Didos will replace four systems currently used for GFR invoice matching. These existing systems have been active since the mid 1990s and have processed millions of invoices, but are run on a technology that is no longer supported and is expensive to maintain.

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