Coins' e-invoicing cost saver

Dean & Dyball, one of six major construction groups to have signed up to Coins Electronic Trading Community (ETC), has subsequently cut its invoice processing costs by 50%, according to information system manager Mike Christopher.
Laing O'Rourke, which now processes 40% of its orders electronically, is reported to be making similar substantial savings. Other users of the ETC hub include Morgan Est, Osborne, Bachy Soletanche and KMI Water, a jv comprising Kier, Murphy and Interserve.
"They were all users of Coins' existing software. When we expanded our range a year ago and could also offer Coins ETC, the hub allowed them to trade electronically," said Mike Wallace, head of e-business at Coins. "It means they can send orders and receive invoices electronically with no re-keying. The system automatically matches invoices and orders."
The value of such a system is greatest in the plant hire sector, where 60% of invoices go into query. The average invoice value in the construction industry is no more than £200. Handling invoices traditionally, by means of paper-based systems, is reckoned to add a £70 handling cost. E-business eats into this overhead by providing a low-cost alternative.
Nigel Cope, managing director of Coins, said: "One of our customers can verify that every time an invoice is queried, it takes 17 bits of paper to sort the problem out. We've eliminated this muddle."
To get Coins ETC up and running, Cope went to each of his major construction clients and asked for leads to their top five suppliers. This brought on board 25 household names, including Tarmac, Aggregate Industries, Hanson, Hilti, Travis Perkins, Wolseley and Jewson.
"All suppliers are having to make decisions on the direction of their e-business," Wallace said. "Some, like Hanson, have joined every electronic trading hub that exists, while others, such as Lafarge, have joined none. In the middle, those who have trialled with, say, three different hubs are finding it a lot of work. They are preparing to plump for just one.
"Several of our new users are so pleased with ETC that they are starting to take us further into their e-systems, to both their customers and their major suppliers. So it's looking very good."
More than £500,000 has been spent over the past four years to develop Coins ETC, and the system has recently become a profit-maker.
Construction players can chose from a range of hubs, such as those offered by Coins, Asite, Tradex and Burns.
"The unique feature of Coins is that it is the only one with back-office integration," Cope said. Asite's hub that is used on Heathrow T5, for example, only integrates through the use of Coins technology.
During the past year, Coins has acquired 14 sizeable new users, each with a turnover of more than £20m, with names on the list including Amec and Mivan, the Northern Ireland subcontractor.