Managing today’s office of the CFO is a complex challenge. Thankfully, many technologies are available that make the job of the CFO easier while minimizing costs. Â
One of these areas is invoice processing. Once a tedious and often expensive undertaking, new technologies are helping to take the strain off finance teams. One company leading the way in this area is SignUp Software.
The company has honed its expertise to cater specifically to customers using Microsoft Dynamics 365, one of the most popular ERP systems. By doing so, they have created a product that stands out in its effectiveness and has become a market leader.
Who They Are
SignUp Software was founded in Sweden in 1999 by the father and son team of Göran and Henrik Garvner. SignUp’s flagship finance automation product, ExFlow, was launched in 2003. Early on, the company worked on a model whereby software was rented to customers before it was transitioned into a SaaS application available in the cloud.
While SignUp is still headquartered in Sweden, the company has offices in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Spain, the UK, the US, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and over 150 global resellers. Today, the company has over 2,000 customers in 60+ countries.
The company was listed on the NASDAQ but has since returned to operating as a private entity. One of the key investors is the New York-based software investment company Insight Partners.
Olof Hedin is SignUp’s current Group CEO. His previous appointments include VP of Sales and Business Development at Acando, a system integrator and consultancy company, CIO for Permobil, CDO of the industrial maintenance supplier Quant Services, and Chairman of the Board at SignUp. “We are focused,” Hedin tells Acceleration Economy. “We have one product, ExFlow, and we are only selling to Microsoft customers.”
What They Do
SignUp Software is a global leader in accounts payable automation. The company addresses what Hedin describes as the three C’s regarding invoice processing: cost, compliance, and control. “There are hundreds of solutions that do this, but most of them sit outside,” explains Hedin. “What happens is you have to integrate the ERP system, you have to shuffle the data outside, you have to store the data outside, you have to process the data outside.”
These processes introduce complexities, especially when dealing with regular updates to cloud ERP systems. On top of this, there are often overlapping technologies purchased inside and outside of the ERP, leading to redundancies as well as dual storage costs, license costs, and integration costs.
With ExFlow, SignUp solves these issues. The application is fully embedded inside Dynamics 365, and once downloaded from the Microsoft B2B marketplace, it’s ready to go. In contrast to implementing a solution that you need to integrate, the payoff is a matter of months.
How It Works
A user-friendly, universally accessible application, ExFlow has been developed for both Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (F&O) and Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC), providing slightly different services for both ERP systems. ExFlow accounts payable (AP) automation and data capture features are available in both instances.
ExFlow AP Automation enables users to automate supplier invoice workflows. Since it is built into Dynamics 365 F&O and BC, everything operates within the organization’s own D365 security environment. Additionally, as a mobile-friendly application, it enables approvals from any device.
ExFlow can receive the invoices in many formats such as electronic, PDFs, or scanned papers. Regarding data capture, the technology seamlessly interprets critical data like vendor information and PO numbers from invoices and posts the information into ExFlow via API. Users are also informed of any anomalies or issues requiring further investigation.
ExFlow for Dynamics 365 F&O also includes a fully compliant, streamlined E-invoicing service, while BC customers can benefit from fully digitized travel and expense management.
“A lot of people talk about horizontal and vertical solutions,” says Hedin. “ExFlow is actually diagonal. We can handle the largest customers and the smallest. It’s all countries, all sizes, and all industries.”
Who They’ve Impacted
One company that has benefited from onboarding ExFlow is Norlys, Denmark’s largest energy and telecommunications group with close to 1.6 million customers. In 2023, after a series of mergers, the company’s finance team was tasked with migrating the invoicing capabilities of 25 companies into a unified system.
Norlys selected ExFlow as the AP Automation solution for its automatic vendor invoicing system. As well as giving the company far more control over invoice processing, ExFlow has made it more straightforward and less time-consuming. “We were able to streamline one of our processes in ExFlow to such an extent that our credit controller, who used to spend an entire week of every month on this particular task, now only encounters the invoice when it needs to be approved,” says Monica Kousgaard Franck, Finance Applications specialist at Norlys in a SignUp case study. “The invoice automatically flows right through. I was ecstatic!”
Beyond this, ExFlow’s usability has made implementation far easier because employees can quickly adapt to it. “It’s one thing to streamline the workflow for the creditor team, but if you have 1,000 employees that need to approve invoices, the system makes a huge difference for them too. This new approval process has become an advantage for the entire company,” says Franck.
What’s Next
In December 2023, SignUp Software announced that it had acquired the Netherlands-based company Axtension, marking an extension of the services SignUp offers to the office of the CFO. Axtension specializes in AP automation, document management, enterprise projects, and shipment orchestration.
“They have six different products that are more in the realm of the supply chain manager,” explains Hedin. With the acquisition, SignUp can begin to provide its customers with a broader set of tools to optimize business processes. Following the acquisition, SignUp Software became the primary provider for invoice processing built into the Microsoft Dynamics 365 ecosystem.
