Background
Food and Beverage costs for the catering centre are around £200k per an-num, with supplies provided by a relatively wide range of suppliers. It’s long been the policy of the Congress Centre to outsource the consolidated billing on their catering purchasing invoices in order to simplify and minimise the demand upon their small finance team.
Brief
- Handle the recording of all catering purchasing invoices
- Maintain electronic records of all invoices so they are available upon demand
- Provide one invoice and a suitably detailed monthly report to the Congress Centre’s finance team
- Ensure supplier payments are managed efficiently and the supply of goods is not put at risk.
Approach
Consolidated billing needs to be pain-free for the client so we accepted the Congress Centre’s invoices in whichever format best suits them.
We recorded the details of the invoices in whatever level of detail suited the Congress Centre and we aligned the description of the nominal codes we used to match those used by their finance team.
The level of detail provided with the monthly report was agreed with the Congress Centre, as was the detail around where VAT applies and where it doesn’t.
We established direct contact with the supply chain and developed a relationship with them too so that they also value the collaborative approach we took to ensure things run smoothly.
Outcomes
1. The Congress Centre’s Finance Team now deal with just one Food and Beverage purchasing invoice per month rather than around 1,000+ a year which Litmus handle on their behalf
2. Supply chain relationships are as strong as ever