Resources Case Studies

Automating the Purchasing & Invoicing Cycle

Established in 1976, Lamps Plus is the nation's largest specialty lighting company and includes three divisions: Lamps Plus, Lamps Plus – Centennial and Pacific Coast Lighting.

Driven by a growing internet business, Lamps Plus needed to evolve its processes from manual (all purchase orders were done via fax) to automated. Today, Lamps Plus has achieved its goal with more than 90% of orders placed, received and invoices electronically processed with its suppliers.

The retailer decided not to purchase an EDI application; instead it automated its PO and invoice functions without becoming EDI experts, adding personnel or purchasing expensive hardware and software. Lamps Plus chose to outsource its EDI operations to the leading hosted EDI service, SPS Commerce. In addition, SPS Commerce would execute an enablement campaign to connect its suppliers via EDI.

Lamps Plus selected 80 of its largest domestic vendors for the initiative and SPS Commerce performed all vendor communications, developed all maps and tested all transactions.

“During the enablement campaign, SPS Commerce regularly kept us abreast of its progress and alerted us to any vendors with special needs,” said Clark Linstone, CFO at Lamps Plus. “SPS had the bandwidth to communicate efficiently with our vendors, something that could have been extremely taxing on our staff otherwise. Everyone at SPS was very professional with our vendors, answered all of their questions and produced the results we were looking for…with minimal effort from us.”

Key Learnings:

• Technology was not a strength of Lamps Plus’ suppliers; education was required.
• Vendors’ instinct was to first call Lamps Plus, not SPS; keeping SPS as the sole point of contact was critical.
• Buyers needed to refrain from discussing or negotiating EDI with the vendors, and instead, direct the vendor to a central EDI resource at Lamps Plus.
• Follow up on all unacknowledged 997s or WebForms was required to ensure compliance.

Results:

• 88% of suppliers were live on or before Lamps Plus’ deadline.
• Completed EDI transactions in use include Invoice, Purchase Order (PO), PO Acknowledgement, PO Change, Advance Ship Notice and Shipping Label.
• Invoice Three Way Match completed – using integrated EDI data, Lamps Plus account payable can view any EDI transaction related to a purchase order.