Finding the best provider for your organization can be difficult in a world with seemingly endless options for back-office software. So, what sets ICG apart from the rest? The short answer is that ICG is a different kind of solution provider. We start by focusing on business issues first, then configure a solution from our technology-based set of tools to address those business process issues. One size does not fit all!
What Are ICG’s Core Values?
- Approach prospective customers by first obtaining a solid understanding of the business problem or opportunity.
- Craft business solutions from a wide array of modular, boilerplate applications that can be configured to address the target area with additional modules added as needed.
- Provide single or multi-tenant cloud-hosted solutions to fit our customers’ cost, performance, and security needs with no transaction fees to users or vendors.
- Support on-premise, remote, or hybrid back-office operations, allowing maximum flexibility under any condition.
- Offer multiple integration options to ensure data flows seamlessly in both directions and complies with your IT goals.
- Involve the same business and IT people from the beginning of the sales cycle to the implementation and support of your solution(s).
In Good and Bad Economic Times
Back-office efficiencies and cost savings are at the core of the return on investment ICG delivers. In bad economic times when sales are slow and margins are under pressure, our back-office solutions can deliver much-needed cost reductions and increased productivity. We also help you manage your vendors and create a robust vendor self-service environment that allows you to push non-value-add activities back to your vendors via a vendor portal.
When times are good and sales are booming, the automated nature of ICG’s financial back-office solutions will enable your operations to handle growth, organic or via acquisition, with little or no additional back-office processing costs.
ICG Helps You Focus Where It Matters
- Discounts captured: Many businesses aren’t capturing many of the discounts they are entitled to. Some companies see a 70% discount capture rate, whereas ICG aims for a rate of 95% or higher.
- Cycle times for invoice and dispute processing: This is the amount of time that passes from when the vendor invoice is received to the time the payment goes through, or when a payment dispute is submitted until it is resolved. High cycle times usually result in higher processing costs, lost discounts, and less flexibility to manage cash flow.
- Cost per transaction: What is it costing your company to handle and process an invoice? This calculation starts upon PO creation or includes the cost of processing transactions for payment. Keeping this number low will keep costs down and allow for transaction growth without a large increase in expense.
- Exceptions. How many of the invoices you receive have problems/discrepancies? In most organizations, this number is generally relatively high. Changes to your process and vendor behavior can help in this area, but automating the exception processing process can reduce costs dramatically.
- Credit holds: These vendors have frozen your account and will not do business with you until payment issues are resolved. For many companies, a vendor withholding products or services can have a very negative effect on business. Vendor management tools, along with back-office automation, can help to eliminate this condition and create better relationships (and contract terms) with key vendors.
- Workflow management. Getting the right information to the right people at the right time is fundamental to back-office efficiency. Having a well-thought-out workflow that fits your process will go a long way to facilitating an efficient operation.
- Communicate. Collaborate. Transact. An often overlooked key to an efficient back-office operation is the ability to communicate and collaborate in real-time with your vendors so the transaction processing flows with minimal disruption or delay. Vendor portals provide the vehicle to stay connected to your vendor base 24/7 from anywhere in the world.
The Tools For a More Efficient Back-Office
The technology-based tools our teams use to configure a solution for you include different aspects of the back office. We invite you to visit our Solutions page for more information on our solutions, which include but are not limited to:
- AP Automation
- Vendor Portals
- Vendor Onboarding & Administration
- Workflow Management
- Dynamic Discounting
- Data Capture and Document Assembly
- PO Dispatch & Update
Contact ICG for more information, request a demo, or schedule a conversation.