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