Medical device distribution

Finance operations at Europe's largest independent medical device distributor.

Client
HC21 Group
Industry
Medical device distribution (Europe's largest independent)
Engagement
Finance operations, ongoing
60%+
Incoming payments reconciled and posted automatically
SAP
Live three-way matching at line-item level
0
Additional FTEs required to absorb acquisition-led growth
01The brief

Volume grew faster than AP could scale.

HC21 Group had grown rapidly through acquisitions to become Europe's largest independent medical device distributor. Finance operations — particularly AP and AR payments processing — were facing a scaling wall. The existing manual processes worked, but couldn't absorb further transaction volume without a proportional increase in headcount the Group Finance Controller couldn't justify.

02What we built

Four components, live on SAP.

1
Intelligent invoice and remittance ingestion

Inbound emails automatically parsed, invoices and remittances extracted using AI, routed to the correct approval workflow.

2
Three-way matching engine on SAP

Line-item level matching between invoices, POs, and GRPOs directly against SAP. Built on Microsoft Power Platform so the application shipped in weeks, not months.

3
Automated posting to SAP via RPA

Matched AP invoices and matched incoming payments posted into SAP via open-source RPA. No manual re-keying, no wait for a custom SAP integration project.

4
Exceptions workbench

Finance operations team sees every invoice and remittance centrally, handles only the exceptions, and feeds resolutions back into the matching engine.

03The results

Autonomous AP, compounding over time.

→
Over 60% of incoming payments now reconciled and posted automatically, no manual touch
→
Autonomous processing rate rises over time as root causes for exceptions are fixed
→
Finance operations capacity re-directed from transaction handling to exception analysis and supplier relationship work
→
The operation now absorbs acquisition growth without proportional headcount increase
04Technology
Microsoft Power AppsPower AutomateOpen-source RPASAP integrationAI document extraction
“Apridata were instrumental in transforming our finance operations. Their technical capability combined with in-depth knowledge of our business and SAP environment made them a valuable partner in our digital transformation journey.”
Trevor Rodgers Chief Financial Officer, HC21 Group