Case Study: Potter Electric achieves 50% PO invoice automation and reduces DSO by 3 days with Esker

Scaling Accounting Processes to Accommodate Company Growth

Potter Electric Signal Company, a 120‑year‑old manufacturer of fire-safety and sprinkler‑monitoring devices, was experiencing rapid growth (20%+ annually) that pushed its accounting team to process up to 3,000 supplier invoices a month. Their Epicor ERP handled much of the work but couldn’t fully automate data entry or the three‑way match between purchase orders, invoices and receiving reports, creating a growing manual workload.

Potter implemented Esker’s Accounts Payable solution (late 2016) and added Accounts Receivable in 2018 to scale with growth. The automation eliminated manual processing for over 50% of PO invoices, improved visibility with dashboards, shortened DSO by three days, simplified customer payments through portals, and freed staff to focus on higher‑value, strategic tasks while improving collections.

Potter Electric

Elizabeth Cassady

Vice President and Global Corporate Controller