Canadian North Airlines Utilizes E-invoicing Solution That Guarantees 100% Data Accuracy

    TORONTO, ON, January 24, 2015 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Canadian North has seen rapid business expansion, doubling in size in recent years, which has left existing systems over-stretched. The airline needed a new solution that would be quick and easy to implement, yet capable of processing large volumes of invoices each month with minimal human intervention.

Ralf Leitner, President, EchoVera explains, "The e-invoicing offering from CloudTrade and EchoVera removes paper at source and enables AP automation in Palette Arena - Canadian North's invoice processing application. The need for traditional scanning and OCR is eliminated and because the e-invoice data comes directly from the supplier's billing application, 100% data accuracy can be guaranteed. This, in turn means higher levels of straight-through processing, which for Canadian North was key".

Richard Manson, Commercial Director at CloudTrade, continues, "The CloudTrade e-invoicing service differs from more traditional e-invoice and EDI services on the market. Suppliers need only to send their invoices as PDF documents. There are no requirements to send XML or EDI invoice files or to duplicate efforts by using an invoice portal to submit an invoice directly after it's been raised in the accounting package - problems usually associated with e-invoicing. When a PDF is generated by a billing application the invoice data is passed in the layers of the PDF itself. CloudTrade takes advantage of this data layer, mapping it to an e-invoice structure that can be ingested into Palette Arena or any other accounting or invoice processing application. The service is akin to mapping one flavour of XML to another. As PDF invoicing is ubiquitous and out-of -the-box with most accounting packages, the ease with which suppliers can become an e-invoice vendor means that we achieve over 90% supplier adoption rates, levels unheard of with traditional e-invoicing solutions".

Canadian North's initial roll out focused on their biggest "pain point", the processing of fuel and catering related invoices, their highest volume and dollar value suppliers. Immediate success with these vendors led the airline to quickly expand their e-invoicing initiative by increasing the number of suppliers with an end goal of processing all invoices over time.

Manson continues, "During initial testing of Canadian North's fuel invoices, documents were in the system ready for approval within two minutes of being sent by the supplier. This compares to several days or more using their previous paper and post systems, scanning and manual data entry. When you extend this out across all of their invoices the time and cost savings will be huge, and it will enable staff to be used to better effect".

CloudTrade provides a non-disruptive way for trading partners to send electronic invoices, orders and other business documents straight into the end processing application. Working in partnership with CloudTrade strengthens EchoVera's range of document automation solutions that it provides to organizations looking to increase productivity and reduce costs by removing bottlenecks associated with traditional paper-based processes and transactions.

About EchoVera Inc.
EchoVera Inc. provides Electronic Invoicing, OCR Scanning, and AP Purchase-to-Pay solutions to companies and organizations looking to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of their accounts payable operations. With offices in Toronto, Calgary, and Ottawa, EchoVera brings over thirty years of experience to customers across North America. http://echovera.ca

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