Nikken automates invoicing system

Japanese rental company Nikken has implemented an automated invoice processing system at 250 of its rental locations in Japan. The company said the technology - ‘Bill One’ from Sansan Inc - will save more than €0.68 million a year and reduce its workload by 14,000 hours.

The company receives as many as 276,000 purchase invoices every year and these were previously processed by paper, requiring outsourcing (for re-rental contracts) as well as considerable internal effort. The Bill One system receives paper invoices, digitises them and uploads to the cloud.

In addition to the workload, Nikken said fluctuations in transaction amounts caused by changes in rental periods meant there were frequent discrepancies between payments and invoice details.

Construction equipment in Nikken’s rental fleet.

The company has also automated the matching of payment information by linking the invoice data with its core accounting systems. This, it said, allows sales office staff to quickly identify discrepancies and establish a system where they can confirm the details with suppliers, strengthening information sharing and improving accuracy.

Tsuna Kazuma, deputy general manager of Nikken’s management division, said; “Anticipating future labour shortages, we aim to move away from a labour-intensive business model. One way to achieve this is to focus on revamping our internal business processes using IT. This project was initiated as part of this strategic initiative.”

Kazuma said the system has been adopted by over 10,000 customers in the past year; “Furthermore, of the approximately 276,000 invoices we receive annually, over 80% are received electronically, demonstrating steady progress in our digitalization efforts.

“Given our diverse product portfolio, including vehicles, machinery, equipment, merchandise, parts, service purchasing, and transportation, we believe this initiative has enabled a wide range of industries to experience the benefits of digital transformation.”