With Purchase to Pay, LUMICKS’ admin work is “done with a single click”

“Elari is a valuable addition to Exact Online.”

Vito Havik, Source & Supply Chain Officer at LUMICKS

When you suddenly have twice as many employees as last year, it changes the way you work. All the tools you use to simplify work for employees need to be scalable. Fortunately, LUMICKS was able to find a solution in Elari.

With such a doubling in size, Excel files are no longer practical. LUMICKS discovered this in March 2020, when they launched Elari Procurement and Invoice Processing. They now match all invoices (2,319) and purchase orders (1,100) wherever possible.

LUMICKS: Purchase to Pay at a biotech innovator

With more than 120 employees spread across two locations, one of which is all the way in Boston, you need a workflow that’s easy for everyone. It needs to be practical for colleagues in the Netherlands and abroad. It needs to be future-proof so that the company can continue to grow. Fortunately, Elari was able to meet the needs of this biotech innovator.

How does LUMICKS work?

Among other things, this unique company is dedicated to the fight against cancer. Using their distinctive techniques involving complex microscopes, lasers, and fluorescently labeled proteins, they help researchers at the world’s leading universities study DNA-protein interactions. And with an entirely new instrument for the immunology market, they aim to give researchers the ability to measure which T cells are best equipped to fight cancer cells.

Sometimes it sounds like they’re working on science fiction, but the impact they have on our society is very real. You can imagine that designing such solutions is precision work that requires complete concentration. Distractions from a cumbersome procurement process are unacceptable.

From doing double the work to working twice as fast

In the past, LUMICKS worked with various Excel spreadsheets that required a lot of data entry. All of this was then transferred manually. The administrative staff had to check all the forms and often repeat in the web store the steps the employee had taken to gather information. This meant it took at least as long as it did for the employee to actually place an order, and sometimes even longer. In short: an error-prone process that requires an unnecessary amount of manual work.

“There weren’t really any frustrations with our previous way of working, but we mainly wanted structure and clarity. Placing an order with the push of a button really makes a world of difference. Especially compared to an administrative system that has to repeat every step an employee takes,” says Vito Havik, Source & Supply Chain Officer, who initiated the search for a solution. That’s certainly true when you process more than 900 orders annually.

Elari as a valuable addition to Exact

Before LUMICKS started using Elari, they had already been working with Exact Online as their financial system for quite some time. Later, Exact’s inventory management was added to the mix, so it was great that Elari could integrate seamlessly with it. That was actually one of the reasons LUMICKS considered Elari in the first place. Exact itself was too cumbersome for LUMICKS when it came to procurement and invoice processing, so it was essential that they be able to expand Exact’s starter package with Elari’s specialized Purchase to Pay software.

Why did LUMICKS specifically choose Elari for procurement?

First and foremost, LUMICKS wanted an alternative to its existing procurement process. The addition of invoice processing software came later. “The procurement process needed to be more efficient and less prone to errors. We wanted to maintain autonomy for the employees themselves, but control, of course, had to remain with management. Elari makes that possible.”

The main goal was therefore to simplify procurement, but the automatic matching of invoices also saves a lot of manual work. That’s what makes the combination of the two Elari modules so appealing to LUMICKS.

“With Elari, we can choose to process invoices fully automatically. The 3-way match has become an indispensable part of the process, but we still choose to keep a close eye on things and have all invoices go through the accounting department. As a company, you have that freedom of choice, and that’s nice.”

A 3-month implementation process, even while everyone was working from home

When you’re dealing with a major change in March 2020, things obviously don’t go as you’d planned. Providing face-to-face support is naturally preferable when implementing new software, but fortunately, Elari is intuitive. So even with everyone working from home, the implementation went smoothly. So smoothly, in fact, that LUMICKS went live with both Procurement and Invoice Processing within three months.

“When you’re a young and dynamic company that’s tech-savvy and open to change, that really helps with a quick implementation. Even before we got started, employees recognized the importance of the solution. Implementation naturally goes much more smoothly when Elari has broad support, and that was certainly the case for us.”

The human touch of Elari support

Elari is human: you can tell that not only because there’s occasionally a bug, but also because of the human touch of the support department, for example. They’re always there for you.

“When there’s an update, it can sometimes introduce a bug, and in the worst-case scenario, your entire purchasing process can grind to a halt. Fortunately, those kinds of problems are usually resolved quickly with just a quick phone call. We’re satisfied with the Elari support department.”

Working with Elari means focusing on the future

When you ask Vito what the biggest advantage of Elari is, it turns out to be a difficult question. For him, two elements really stand out: control and freedom, and future-proofing.

Control and freedom

“You can guide employee behavior from the top down, while they still experience a great deal of freedom. That’s a pleasant way of working for both departments. A platform where employees can handle all their own purchasing is essential. Fortunately, we found that in Elari. It’s also nice that there are no complicated tasks hidden behind a process that’s easier for employees. The software works for everyone.”

Future-proofing

LUMICKS not only wants to provide medical solutions for the future, but they’re also focused on their own future. With Elari, they’re always prepared for an audit and are equipped to handle growth. They can easily accommodate a doubling of their workforce without having to double the size of the back office. Everyone can work much more efficiently, so the same amount of work gets done with far fewer employees. That translates to savings in time, money, and manual tasks.

“With Elari, you can easily scale up, so we can continue to grow while reducing the hours we spend on administration. The administrative work is done with a single click, so to speak.”

Vito Havik, Source & Supply Chain Officer at LUMICKS

Meanwhile, virtually everyone at LUMICKS uses Elari. All purchases go through the Procurement module; the accounting department verifies that costs are correctly recorded and confirms whether they actually want to make the expenditures. The purchasing process flows seamlessly into Invoice Processing. This gives LUMICKS advance control over expenditures, which is great.

Elari is also future-ready when it comes to innovation and new technology. We’re increasingly handling things via smartphones instead of computers and tablets, so an app is more of a necessity than a nice-to-have. Especially when working from home and when employees want to stay connected “on the go,” a feature like that is important.

“I mostly work on a desktop myself, as do many of my colleagues, but the Elari app is definitely user-friendly. It’s convenient when you’re on the go or when you don’t want to boot up your entire computer just to approve a purchase request.”

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