Case Studies
Trans Advantage, Inc.
Industry: Finance and Equipment Sales
Name of Company: Trans Advantage, Inc.
Description of Company: A leading supplier of financial services, equipment, and specialized services for the moving and storage industry, Trans Advantage provides convenient, money-saving national vendor buying programs to agents of its sister companies Mayflower and United Van Lines, and as well as to several non-affiliated moving companies, in more than 900 U.S. locations.
Business Challenge: A manual system for invoicing agents was both labor intensive and inefficient, requiring redundant data entry and extensive research by the Customer Service and Accounts Payable teams. The results were data entry backlogs during peak seasons, growing agent dissatisfaction from frequent billing mistakes and delays, as well as cash flow problems. To improve billing timeliness and increase agent satisfaction, Trans Advantage needed a system for automating invoice data, payment disbursement and reconciliation for its customers.
Corcentric Solution: Corcentric technology provided Trans Advantage with an Internet hosting and billing service that allows entry of authorized purchase orders for equipment and supplies such as tires, rentals and cartons. Vendor invoices for these purchases are now electronically validated and matched to authorized orders, edited for accuracy and automatically forwarded to an Accounts Payable system which bills agents. The Corcentric system also speeds payments to national suppliers.
Results: The Corcentric system has streamlined data entry, enabling Trans Advantage to process more than 61,000 transactions in 2008 without the need for additional A/P staff or increased overtime during peak seasons. Invoices that once took a month to process are now available online in greater detail to agents within days, enabling them to bill drivers for their expenses more promptly, and improving Trans Advantage's overall cash flow. Through Corcentric's expedited payment of vendor invoices, Trans Advantage also now consistently realizes early payment discounts from suppliers. And, in addition, fewer administrative employees are required to respond to the drastically lower volume of agent billing questions. Customer satisfaction has increased dramatically, putting the company on track for future growth.