The long-established, multi-billion Skolt Group wanted to move away from time-consuming, manual accounts payable (AP) procedures. With Rydoo Accounts Payable, the AI software for AP automation, most of the company's invoice workflow is now automated, and large parts of the business are benefiting in entirely new ways.

There was no lack of ambition when the three Skolt brothers from Moss founded the business in 1953, and there has been no shortage of work in the 70 years since. The company has focused on acquisitions, aggressive expansion and targeted investments, and it is many years since it was first dubbed "Skolt – the king of crushed stone in Østfold".

But crushed stone is far from the company's only activity. Its business areas are now Property, Entrepreneur, and Crushed Stone & Soil, and the Group's 300 employees generated a turnover of NOK 1.1 billion in 2021. Together, these business areas received more than 32,000 invoices in 2022, of which 24,000 (around 75 percent) were posted automatically by Rydoo Accounts Payable.

Henrik Aaserød

Chartered Accountant, Park & Anlegg AS (Skolt Group)

“We have freed up a lot of time. Rydoo Accounts Payable can read every invoice line and suggest postings based on historical learning or sets of rules."

Time-consuming processes

By far the largest company in the Skolt Group is Park & Anlegg AS, where Henrik Aaserød works as a chartered accountant. In a webinar hosted by Rydoo Accounts Payable, he explained how its AP automation benefits both the finance department and the Group as a whole.

"There are seven of us in the finance department, which handles the accounts for around 20 companies. Even though we were already receiving a number of invoices in PEPPOL format before we switched to Rydoo Accounts Payable, we were still receiving far too many paper or email invoices. Previously, we had to manually move all these invoices to the document centre," Aaserød explains.

Each invoice then had to be analyzed manually to determine the correct project or department, so that it could be approved by the right person. After that, the finance department had to spend time finding the right posting for the ERP system and deciding whether an accrual was needed. All in all, it was a manual and time-consuming process.

A high degree of automation

Skolt wanted a system that could improve its workflow. In Rydoo Accounts Payable, it found a partner that shared much of the Group's thinking: forward-looking, keen to adopt new technology, and focused on the business value it could bring to its customers.

"When we started using Rydoo Accounts Payable, we first sat down with the team to see where and how the system could help us extract the most value as quickly as possible. We started by 'teaching' our largest suppliers to use PEPPOL invoices and to mark their invoices correctly with a project number, department, buyer reference or similar. The advantage is that this isn't a never-ending process, and the benefits are long-lasting," says Aaserød.

"Now, Rydoo Accounts Payable accurately handles processes such as invoice interpretation and validation, approval, posting, accruals and accounting for group companies. This has freed up a lot of time, not least because Rydoo Accounts Payable's AI can read every invoice line and suggest postings based on historical learning or sets of rules," he adds.

In August, just under two years after implementation, 97, 90 and 95 percent of invoices from three of the company's largest suppliers were approved automatically, without the finance department having to lift a finger.

More benefits

Rydoo Accounts Payable does more than simplify the invoice workflow. It uses artificial intelligence and data capture to extract far more information from each invoice than other systems on the market. In fact, from those 32,000 invoices, the system extracted more than 191,000 line items and close to 1.27 million data points.

“We have freed up a lot of time. Rydoo Accounts Payable can read every invoice line and suggest postings based on historical learning or sets of rules.”

The Skolt Group makes good use of all this data, for example to follow up with and support the company's project managers.

"The system retrieves header and line-item data from the invoices, which the finance department or our project managers can easily use to track which items have been purchased and at what price. For one thing, this makes re-invoicing much easier. It also helps us see, for example, whether we should try to negotiate better terms with our suppliers," says Aaserød.

Another welcome boost to the analysis work is that Rydoo Accounts Payable connects easily to analysis tools such as QlikView, Power BI and others. This makes it much easier to build dashboards or measure exactly the KPIs that matter to Skolt.

“The system retrieves header and line-item data from the invoices, which the finance department or our project managers can easily use to track which items have been purchased and at what price.”

"This may all sound complicated, but Rydoo Accounts Payable has been very easy to use. Users can access everything right from their browser without much training. At the same time, the team is constantly rolling out updates with new functionality and other improvements that make us even more efficient," he says.

Excited to see what comes next

When the webinar was recorded, the Skolt Group was implementing contract matching, a new feature in Rydoo Accounts Payable. It lets the system automatically check whether invoiced prices match the Group's purchasing agreements. Skolt can easily upload prices and timeframes for different agreements and suppliers, either as NELFO files or using Rydoo Accounts Payable's template. The system then monitors purchases automatically and flags any price discrepancies.

"We have been working with Rydoo Accounts Payable for two and a half years now, and have occasionally been guinea pigs for new features before launch. We like that the team has great ambitions for making technology work for its customers, and taking part in that process benefits both sides. It gives us a sense of the value a feature can bring, and it gives Rydoo Accounts Payable a better grasp of how to make it work best for customers when it launches," Aaserød concludes.