BrandSafway processes 660,000 invoices a year across 340-plus locations on six continents, and until recently its AP team had limited visibility into where those invoices were slowing down the system.
The company's partnership with Basware started in 2018 as an initiative to improve invoice processing in North America and has since expanded globally, bringing automation and analytics to the company's financial operations. When BrandSafway implemented Basware's AP Automation solution, automatic invoice matching jumped from zero to 39% in just twelve months. More recently, the company began testing Basware's Insights analytics layer to further optimize its processes, and with AI-powered features on the horizon, BrandSafway sees more room to grow.
The Problem: Two ERPs, No Single Source of Truth
BrandSafway runs two distinct ERPs, one for North America and one for its international division. That split brought challenges, inefficiencies, and inconsistencies in invoice processing across regions.
Dave Francis, BrandSafway's Global Business Services Transition Lead, led the effort to change that. "We led a project almost four years ago to bring Basware into our international division, which created a single repository for invoices across the globe," Francis says. That consolidation eliminated the fragmentation between systems, enabling better visibility and control over AP processes worldwide.
From Automation to Intelligence
Getting invoices into one system was the foundation, but the next question was what to do with the data. BrandSafway had already pushed its SmartPDF invoice rate to 92%, meaning most invoices were being captured and digitized without manual keying. But Francis wanted to go further and reduce the manual touches that remained in matching, approvals, and exception handling.
Basware's Insights product gave the AP team a granular view of the full invoice journey, from receipt through to payment. Francis is direct about the goal: "I don't want an AP clerk to have to touch an invoice. Insights helps us see where invoices are being manually processed and find ways to reduce those touches."
Beyond touchless processing, Insights has also helped BrandSafway identify vendor performance trends and detect approval bottlenecks, enabling faster invoice processing across the organization.
AI as a Decision Layer, Not a Buzzword
Basware's Intelligent Invoice Lifecycle Management platform is trained on over two billion invoices, and that scale feeds into the analytics BrandSafway now uses. The AI-powered functionality within Insights identifies bottlenecks, flags vendor performance issues, and recommends process changes.
Francis points to an upcoming capability: "One of the new features soon to launch is the hints section, which suggests changes that could save thousands of invoice touches." In practice, that means the system watches workflows, spots patterns at scale, and tells the team exactly where to intervene, resulting in a different way to manage AP.
Scaling What Works
BrandSafway grows through both acquisition and organic expansion, which means its invoice volumes are always a moving target. Francis sees Insights as the tool that keeps pace: "As our volumes increase, Insights will help us manage that growth effectively."
What Comes Next
Francis sums up the partnership: "Our journey with Basware started at a foundational level and has grown into a transformative partnership. With AI, automation, and everything else coming, we look forward to continuing this path together."
If you're running a high-volume AP operation and want to see what this looks like in practice, read the full BrandSafway case study or request a demo to benchmark your own AP performance.
