Basware Connect 2018 Dispatch: By the Numbers and New Developments

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Spend Matters is on the ground in Austin, Texas, to cover theBaswareConnect 2018 customer conference. The event kicked off Wednesday with an analyst-focused discussion on where the procure-to-pay (P2P) provider grew in 2017 and where it is adding to its value proposition in the coming year.

How does Basware stack up against other procure-to-pay (P2P) providers? Check out the Spend Matters Q1 2018 SolutionMap to view free comparative rankings.

Basware: By the Numbers

Basware began the talk by reiterating its promise to its clients: helping them “realize tomorrow’s financial goals today.” To support that statement, the provider shared some metrics on how it performed in 2017. Below are some figures that caught our attention:

Basware Network Worldwide:

• 120 million transactions
• €600 billion annual spend
• 220 interoperability partners
• 2 million active buyers and suppliers
• 70 e-invoice formats supported
• 50 countries in compliance with invoicing regulations
• 100 country presence
• Partnered with QAD and ApexAnalytix

Basware Network in the US

• 100% U.S. P2P customers used the Basware Network
• 10 interoperability partners; Basware participates in the Business Payments Coalition
• The largest PDF e-invoice customer receives 70,000 invoices per month through Basware’s service

Looking Ahead

Beyond the retrospective, Basware centered its discussion on the theme of transforming businesses without forcing buyers and suppliers to do so. The provider enables this on four fronts: procurement, accounts payable (AP) automation, working capital and predictive analytics.

These four areas received development attention in 2017, and Basware also hinted at some of the new features customers can expect later this year and in 2019. While we will analyze these new developments in depth within upcoming briefs, the following are worth mentioning for now:

Procurement

• A new strategic sourcing offering
• Driving better and more responsible spend behavior through gamification
• Introducing guided buying supported by machine learning
• User experience enhancements for approval (e.g., line item-level views, approvals via email, recommendations for whom to add to approval chains)
• A new chatbot with plans to incorporate voice recognition
• The incorporation of price comparisons into the results of the catalog search for the same product sought
• A new mobile app

AP Automation

• Smart coding, automated through the use of historical data and algorithms
• Predictive analytics that predict payment behaviors to avoid late payments
• Benchmarking, using community intelligence from the Basware Network to improve performance
• Best fit matching, which can automate all spend regardless of invoice quality (even paper)
• Recurring invoice automation, which recognizes recurring invoices and automatically proposes the creation of a payment plan
• CloudScan 3.0, including new languages and machine learning incorporation

Stay tuned as our coverage of Basware Connect 2018 continues.