As part of a tender and evaluation process involving 8 other suppliers, The Very Group determined that Flintfox was the most suitable solution with functionality that would most capably address the company’s specific supplier rebate challenges.

Flintfox had the technical capability to handle The Very Group’s legacy infrastructure and the company’s new cloud-based systems. The decision was made to implement Flintfox for D365, with integration to Oracle Financials for invoicing.

Flintfox for D365 includes functionality for Price Management, Rebate Management, Promotion Pricing, and Claim and Deductions, which is all embedded within the Dynamics 365 environment, meaning most of the rebate requirements could be fulfilled out of the box, reducing the need for customisations. The overall solution cost was also relatively low by comparison to the alternative options.

In summary, the key reasons for selecting Flintfox included the out-of-the-box functionality, combined with relatively low cost and the company’s wealth of industry expertise.

Following the implementation of the Flintfox solution, The Very Group reports many successful outcomes.

Elimination of manual spreadsheet processes with huge efficiency gains
The introduction of a centralised and automated solution means that the previous manual approach involving up-keep of 28 large Excel spreadsheets has now been consolidated into a single source of truth, ensuring consistency and accuracy.

The Very Group is now able to process high volumes of trade agreements annually through Flintfox with no limitations on scalability. On average more than 1,500 live trade agreements are managed daily, which can grow to more than 15,000 on Black Friday.

Improved cash flow visibility and flexible financial reporting
The Very Group is now benefiting from improved cash flow visibility including demand margin, as well as full visibility of both forecasted and achieved trading margins. Flintfox’s integration with Oracle Financials Cloud, now allows The Very Group’s invoices to be automatically posted to the General Ledger. Unlimited pricing categories with general ledger posting parameters is resulting in a simplified and systematic invoicing system and flexible financial reporting options.

Buyers no longer need to raise a manual paper claim. Reporting was previously a manual task for a staff member who spent 6 hours every day sifting through spreadsheets in order to create reports for the board. With Flintfox, the information is now available instantaneously, resulting in staff productivity gains. Integration with Power BI allows shareholders to have easy access to financial data.

Improved compliance system
Flintfox is now handling trade agreements for over 1,400 suppliers, providing the benefit of accurate pricing data available at The Very Group’s fingertips and activity being captured as it happens. Previously, in order to meet compliance requirements, the services of a third party were used to report on invoices that had not been paid. With Flintfox, the company has been able to not only transform its compliance processes to keep up with complex industry regulations but remove the need for third-party services resulting in $1 million in annual cost savings.

Automated, faster claims settlements
A more accurate process for managing rebates and claims settlements means that the time spent debating with suppliers in relation to their specific claims has dramatically reduced. Manual validation of claims information was previously a time-consuming, costly task and Flintfox has accelerated the overall efficiency of the claims workflow process.