“Payment management at the click of a button” – DreamPak Boosts Payments Processing With Automation

Monday, Dec 6th 2021
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One of the top priorities for Waleed Gamay, Vice President of Operations at DreamPak LLC, was to tackle his finance team’s significant delays in vendor payments. “I was working on the East Coast and they were sending me check runs from our facility in the Midwest,” he says.

Until 2019, DreamPak was running accounts payable (AP) exclusively on paper, and it had become an administrative nightmare for the beverage manufacturer. This resulted in several payments being received by vendors after due dates, or oftentimes not being received at all, which was further complicated by the complete lack of traceability through the regular US mail channels.

“Now, we’re paying vendors in days as opposed to weeks” – Waleed Gamay, Vice President of Operations, DreamPak LLC 

Within a few weeks of implementing Beanworks AP automation, DreamPak started receiving invoices electronically and paying vendors through ACH (automated clearing house). They moved approvals into the cloud, prioritized payments based on the due date, and scaled their AP operations by eliminating information silos.

“Now, we’re paying vendors in days as opposed to weeks,” Gamay says. Unlike earlier, when he received a stack of checks to sign and mail every week, now he simply logs in to Beanworks and approves payments based on priority. “It’s more organized now. We have all the documents lined up before they’re due, which is something that we struggled with before,” Gamay says. “Whether locally on-site or anywhere in the world, I can approve orders, invoices and payments at the click of a button, whether on my computer or on my mobile device.”

"We didn't miss a beat during COVID-19"

Before, the team was storing all documents inside files and cabinets. But as they transitioned towards a cloud-based accounting model, Gamay curated approval channels within Beanworks that guaranteed security and speed – something most finance teams struggled with during remote work. "We didn't miss a beat during COVID-19," he notes.

"The money doesn't get cleared from the bank until I approve the ACH. This includes wire transfers as well – it's all in one place. I don’t have to go into the bank portal and submit payments," he says.

To further solidify AP security, Gamay added accountability on departmental budgets with Beanworks’ purchase orders (POs). DreamPak requires managers to review their POs before they are submitted. “The automation piece is critical,” for Gamay because earlier there was no system to track a purchase order for an invoice. “I think if we hadn’t had a software to track POs, we would have multiple hurdles, whereas now everyone’s involved in checks and balances,” he says.

“The money doesn’t get cleared from the bank until I approve the ACH. This includes wire transfers as well – it’s all in one place. I don’t have to go into the bank portal and submit payments.”

An easier way to manage expenses

DreamPak’s digital transformation mindset isn’t just limited to vendor payments. The organization has adopted Beanworks to improve expense submission and reimbursement, giving employees a more dynamic expense management experience.

Waleed“Recording monthly employee credit card statements had become an extremely burdensome month-end activity through Microsoft Excel, and I knew there had to be a better way to have employees submit their expenses and receipts electronically rather than through PDF attachments or paper.”

Automating this last piece of AP has enabled smoother operations for all DreamPak’s AP processes. Employees can take a picture of their receipts and submit them online through the Beanworks app. The approver gets a notification and once signed off, the AP team reimburses the employee electronically. All data is stored within the system so they can always go back to audit reports. “All expenses are in one place. It’s comprehensive and we have access to all historical data,” Gamay says.

Over time, the company aims to see a boost in information sharing amongst all parties – internal and external.

"We realized the benefits of having everything in one place, and automating payments, invoices, purchase orders and expenses just made a lot more sense to me. With Beanworks, all information that I need is right there. I have 100% transparency," Gamay concludes.

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