Bristol City Council Deploys PROACTIS to Deliver Efficiency Gains
PROACTIS, the spend control and eProcurement specialist, today announced that Bristol City Council has successfully completed an upgrade project to the latest PROACTIS procurement and purchase-to-pay technologies as part of a major process improvement project for its financial and procurement management.
"The highly ambitious team at Bristol City Council have taken up the challenge and are focused on managing every pound spent to deliver value for money and enhance the quality of public services," said John Charters, Head of Procurement at Bristol City Council. "With PROACTIS, we have combined technology and best practices in order to drive the efficiency of suppliers and maximise spend visibility and control. The improvements we have made to the procurement and purchasing cycle enable us to far better capture savings opportunities, streamline and automate processes and ensure purchasing compliance."
Russ Darling, Head of STS Operations Finance & Procurement, at Bristol, went on to add: "This latest phase concentrated heavily on extracting extra benefits from the accounts payable and invoice processing areas, by introducing very advanced eInvoicing techniques across the whole region, including some 160 schools".
Bristol City Council has implemented PROACTIS' latest procurement and purchasing technologies and also leverages PROACTIS invoicing and accounts payable automation software. Over 3,500 council staff use the PROACTIS system, raising in excess of 5,000 orders with approximately 9,000 suppliers and a combined order value of up to £8 million per calendar month.
Bristol City Council took the decision to upgrade its existing PROACTIS system as part of a quantum leap forward with applying best practices to its back office procurement and financial processes. The implementation combined the functionality of PROACTIS Sourcing & Tenders, Supplier Management, Contract Management, Catalogue Management, Purchasing, Invoice Receipt, Invoice Matching and Employee Expenses, in a single, integrated solution. The Council also decided to take advantage of PROACTIS' easily deployable web-browser architecture to implement a single instance procure-to-pay system allowing it to standardise its processes across the whole organisation.
"Assisted by consultants from PROACTIS, we have used the upgrade as an opportunity to review and streamline many business processes," explained Mr. Darling. "They have experience in many different government organisations and can advise you what is possible and what isn't, and more importantly, what would make the biggest impact at Bristol City Council. With PROACTIS, we have been able to extend the reach of our financial management system to cover the entire procurement process from sourcing through to on-going contract management and purchasing (from requisition to invoice and posting) to improve accuracy and deliver valuable cost savings across the organisation."
Rod Jones, CEO at PROACTIS said: "We are delighted to work with Bristol City Council and provide support in addressing their transformation objectives. Their vision and skills are extremely forward looking and coupled with the PROACTIS industry-leading platform, Bristol can face up to real challenges of cutting costs, driving change and achieving a step-change in operational efficiencies."
Bristol City Council has been a long-standing customer of PROACTIS since 2005. During this period the Council has won several prestigious awards including the Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award from the National Purchasing Institute (NPI).
