Case Study: Western Sugar Cooperative achieves streamlined invoice processing and cost savings with SAP Ariba

Sweet Success Streamlining the Invoice Process

Western Sugar Cooperative, a Denver-based, grower-owned agribusiness with 850+ growers and 1,000+ employees, faced a heavily manual, decentralized accounts payable process handling invoices from 2,100+ suppliers. With roughly 40% of invoices paper-based, no automated exception/error detection, and limited visibility across plants, AP staff spent excessive time on data entry, routing and issue resolution, constraining their ability to focus on strategic priorities.

Western Sugar implemented SAP Ariba Central Invoice Management with inbound processing for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, leveraging OCR, AI-powered data extraction and validation, and SAP iRPA bots to centralize invoices, automate matching and approvals, and provide a single worklist. The solution now processes ~2,000 invoices per month, saved ~33 processing hours/month, reduced per-invoice cost from $1.33 to $1.00 (≈25% faster cycle time), and delivered improved accuracy, compliance, visibility and supplier relationships while freeing AP teams for higher-value work.

Western Sugar Cooperative

Tom Hanson

Accounts Payable Manager