Asian Paints reduces their vendor document processing time to ~30 seconds using Nanonets

Asian Paints, one of Fortune 500, has been India’s largest and Asia's third-largest paint company for almost 50 years. It primarily deals in industrial coating, paints, varnishes, etc., has operations in 14 countries, and manufacturing facilities in 26 global locations. Headquartered in Mumbai, and boasting a revenue of $4.26 Bn., they have an impressive employee strength of over 8,000 and manage a vendor network of 22,000+.

       
1. Location: Mumbai, India
       
2. Founded: 1942
       
3. Leadership: KBS Anand (CEO), Amit Syngle (COO), Jayesh Merchant (CFO)
       
4. Industry: FMCG (Industrial and Household Coatings)
       
5. Employee Count: 1,001-10,000
       
6. Revenue: $ 4.26 Bn.
   

Summary: Asian Paints manages a vendor network of 20,000+ suppliers across 26 manufacturing facilities. The sheer volume and types of documents associated with each vendor pose a significant challenge, especially considering the need for accurate data extraction, entry into SAP, and managing and recording payments.

Description:

Here is a deeper look into the exact process and its challenges at Asian Paints:

1. Asian Paints submits purchase orders to each vendor through SAP.
2. These vendors, in turn, share delivery notes and invoices routed through the bank.
3. The bank then shares DANs (import summary documents) along with delivery notes and invoices.
4. The relevant data points now need to be manually extracted from each document and compiled into a single .CSV file, which is imported into SAP.
5. The Accounts department then manually cross-checks purchase orders against invoices.
6. In case of no discrepancy, the invoices are approved and paid. In case of a discrepancy, the invoice is routed to vendors for approval over email and upon rectification, the payment is made.

This process was not only tedious and time-consuming, but also involved multiple players. The documents often got scattered across systems or email inboxes, leading to delayed payments.

Nanonets helped automate the entire employee reimbursement process end-to-end. Here is a quick look at the solution:

1. Automated Import: Nanonets directly imports the purchase orders, invoices, delivery notes, and DANs (import delivery notes) by integrating with SAP.
2. Classification and routing to custom OCR models: We then classify each of the documents imported and redirect it to a custom OCR model based on its type.
3. Data extraction and export to SAP: All relevant data points from each individual document are extracted and compiled into a single .CSV file which is automatically imported into SAP.
4. Accounts team notifications: The accounts team is notified and they can verify the documents within SAP.
5. Approval routing: If there are discrepancies, it gets routed to respective vendors within SAP and after corrections, the invoices are paid.