Dowling Group

About the Dowling Group

The Dowling Group consists of 3 individual entities namely N T Pubco, DMTL Management Trust and Dowling Holdings Pty Ltd and the group’s line of business includes operating bars, night clubs, and other locations that sell alcoholic drinks.  N T Pubco was founded in 1937.

Manual Processes & Excessive Paper Usage

Previously, the group was using Reckon Desktop, which limited their AP functionality, leading into manual AP processes and paper based credit card reconciliations. This process was tedious as it required the invoices to be approved via email by each line manager, then the accounts team would need to print out the invoices & email approvals for data entering and filing. All invoices would then be archived in a storage facility for 7 years.

This was causing issues such as delayed approvals, unreasonable paper shuffling and inaccurate data which all hindered staff to focus on their core roles and help grow the business. Another significant problem lied within matching suppliers to invoices, especially with multiple locations.

“We had a tricky problem to overcome with the management and matching of suppliers to invoices. We operate in multiple locations and we needed to have multiple vendor accounts set up in Reckon for the same supplier. “

The target

With the business expanding rapidly, the group was considering switching to a cloud based finance system and was also looking for a solution that could handle the approval process for their AP invoices, automate their credit card reconciliation process and become paperless in this space. They needed a solution that would ensure that the issues regarding matching of suppliers to invoices within multiple locations and entities was resolved especially to keep up with the business growth.

The solution

With ProSpend (formerly expensemanager) working hand in hand with Reckon Accounts Hosted, the decision was easy.  The integration between both the systems via cloud API meant that Dowling’s expense and invoice data could be easily exported, totally eliminating re-keying of the data. 

ProSpend was also able to streamline approval process for AP invoices. Even though the group has managers in different locations, ProSpend is 100% cloud based meaning the claims or invoices can be reviewed easily and quickly eliminating any delays in payments. By introducing technology such as OCR allowed matching suppliers simple.

“With technology provided by expensemanager (now ProSpend) such as OCR, suppliers are easily matched saving us time and dramatically reducing errors. As approvers can now access claims via their mobile, they are quickly viewed and submitted with complete visibility.”

Summary

We had a tricky problem to overcome with the management and matching of suppliers to invoices. We operate in multiple locations and we needed to have multiple vendor accounts set up in Reckon for the same supplier. With OCR technology first matching suppliers on their ABN number this caused issues with our process to get a correct match. With their local development team ProSpend was able to make a change for us so that not only was the ABN matched for the correct supplier they also scanned our customer account number to ensure our invoices were matching to the correct vendor in Reckon. This change really helped us as we receive a high portion of invoices from these suppliers.

“expensemanager (now ProSpend) has helped in automating the AP processes and eliminating the paper receipts and invoices. We have a built a successful partnership with expensemanager (now ProSpend) who are always willing to specific needs and being local means they are just a phone call away. We highly recommend ProSpend to other businesses that are experiencing these similar issues.” Gretchen Moreton, CFO