New York City Department of Education Cuts Invoice Processing Time By 75 Percent, Gains Big Savings With Esker DeliveryWare PlatformImplemented By Systems Integrator Tier Technology, Solution Benefits Department and Its Suppliers MADISON, Wis., April 21, 2003 -- The New York City Department of Education, assisted by systems integrator Tier Technology, has implemented Esker DeliveryWare Platform to solve invoicing and payment problems that plague buying organizations and their vendors-manual handling of paper invoices, labor-intensive account processing, and slow payment for goods and services. In cooperation with the Department of Education and its major vendors -- including Staples, McGraw-Hill, Dell, and Apple -- Tier Technology has installed a powerful Esker DeliveryWare invoice-to-payment solution that provides significant, mutual, quantifiable benefits. The vendors email invoices directly to Esker DeliveryWare, which intelligently extracts invoice/account data, converts it to XML, and sends it to the Department's mainframe-based accounting system -- all via rules-based intelligent automation. From a single vendor on a weekly basis, Esker DeliveryWare receives over 350 invoices with more than 1,600 lines of detail, converts the data, and routs it to the accounting system in four minutes. The process previously took 48 hours. With the Esker DeliveryWare solution, the Department expects to reduce the invoice-to-payment cycle from over 30 days to about seven -- a 75 percent reduction. "The New York school system is a big operation, and our purchasing process is complex," said Richard Carlo, deputy administrator in the New York City Department of Education Office of Fiscal Affairs. "With 1,200 schools, we spend almost $1 billion a year on goods and services from thousands of vendors. We maintain 40 financial management centers where personnel handle paper invoices, manually key-in invoice data, and process accounts individually. With our new solution, we'll centralize operations, eliminate paper handling, and -- most important -- realize tremendous labor savings by automating a major part of our accounts payable process." "The solution also provides direct an immediate cash benefit to our vendors and to ourselves," added Carlo. "By reducing the time between receipt of invoices here and delivery of payment to the vendors, we improve their cash flow. When we pay them faster, we -- like any buyer -- earn better discounts." Said Tamer Sevintuna, principal at Tier Technology, "Inbound invoicing with Esker DeliveryWare has so far been a success. The Department of Education is automating its accounts payable process and expediting vendor payments. Over the next few months, we'll continue to bring more large and mid-sized vendors online with the solution. After that, we want to add automated presentment of status reports back to vendors, delivery of other reports to government agencies, and centralized PO processing and transmission." About Esker Software Esker Software solutions connect people and information. Providing access to enterprise host systems and enabling delivery of business information from any enterprise source to any destination, Esker solutions include: -- Esker DeliveryWare Platform -- Esker Fax(TM), Esker VSI-FAX(R), and Esker VSI-FAX for Notes -- Persona(R) by Esker, SmarTerm(R) by Esker, and Tun(R)Plus by Esker. Esker is traded on Euronext -- the French Stock Exchange (Le Nouveau Marche/Euroclear: 3581). With offices in North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific, Esker has shipped over 85,000 document solutions and has a host- access installed base of more than two-million licensed users. For more information, visit http://www.esker.com . Esker S.A. All rights reserved. Esker, the Esker logo, Esker Fax, Persona, SmarTerm, Tun, and VSI-FAX are trademarks or registered trademarks of Esker S.A. in the United States and other countries. Notes is a registered trademark of IBM Corp. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Corporate Contact: Michael O'Neill Esker Inc. michael.oneill@esker.com 405.533.5514 Investor Relations Contact: Emmanuel Olivier Esker S.A. olivier@esker.fr +33 (0)4 72 83 46 46 SOURCE Esker Software Web Site: http://www.esker.com |