Case Study: North American Food Distributor achieves 50% AP staff reduction and $2M/year savings with Direct Commerce

Prominent Food Distributor Takes Control of a Runaway AP Department

North American Food Distributor faced an unsustainably large accounts payable operation—about 50 people and growing—so executives sought automation to modernize workflows and do more with less. They selected Direct Commerce for a tailored eInvoicing & Workflow solution, including a Supplier Portal and secure web-hosted platform that integrated with their ERP, to encourage electronic invoice submission and streamline issue resolution.

Direct Commerce’s implementation drove rapid, measurable improvements: more than 90% electronic invoice submission; dropship lag cut from three weeks to two days; PO invoice turnaround reduced from up to 10 days to under 2 days; weekly overtime down from 80 to 29 hours; and a $2 million/year recovery in missed/repaid cash discounts. The vendor’s solution also enabled staff reduction from 50 to 27 (largely via attrition/redeployment), no supplier costs, and a shift from invoice processing to issue resolution.