CASE STUDY: CALGARY SPORTS SCORES BIG BY INVESTING IN CORTEX E-INVOICING www.nhl.com/flames Executive Summary www.hitmenhockey.com www.stampeders.com When Calgary Sports and Entertainment (CSEC) began looking www.calgaryroughnecks.com for a way to improve their complex invoicing process, it became apparent that they would need a solution that was capable of simplifying an unconventional accounting setup, without adding considerable cost to their operations. By introducing the Cortex Trading Partner Network and having CSEC CORPORATE OVERVIEW: Suppliers send invoices electronically, CSEC was successful in simplifying their accounting processes, improving relations with Founded in 2012, Calgary Sports and their Suppliers, and reallocating resources to other areas of the Entertainment Corporation (CSEC) is business, all while saving money. a privately owned professional sports Just as smart sports organizations are embracing Big Data Analytics and entertainment company based in to generate enhanced insight into athletic performance and Calgary, Alberta, Canada. translating that into measureable team performance, the Cortex solution provided CSEC’s finance group with a 21st century solution CSEC owns and operates four franchises that quickly delivered meaningful results to their organization’s based in Calgary: Calgary Flames of the bottom line. National Hockey League, the Calgary Hitmen of the Western Hockey league, Challenges the Calgary Roughnecks of the National Lacrosse League, and the Calgary By operating on a mandatory per-event accounting model, which Stampeders of the Canadian Football treats each team within the group as a unique business unit, CSEC League. Additionally, CSEC owns the was managing a very complex and exhaustive manual process for Flames’ minor league affiliates based in all of their invoices. 95 percent of CSEC’s entire accounts payable California and New York state. process was paper-based, which required a team of 4 full time employees dedicated to managing the process and was estimated CSEC has a management agreement to cost approx. $300,000 annually. with the City of Calgary to operate the Scotiabank Saddledome arena which Receiving and processing over 2,000 paper invoices per month serves as the home venue of the Flames, took an extensive amount of time. For CSEC, the average total cycle Hitmen, and Roughnecks. time to process a paper invoice was between 30 and 60 days prior to Cortex. The length of this payable Successes include: cycle put significant strain on CSEC’s relationships with Suppliers. • FAST IMPLEMENTATION - Automated approvals, e-Invoicing and document management was fully integrated with In addition to the cost and time Workflow and ERP in 60 days, ensuring a transition could take implications of the manual process, place during the slow months in order to be fully functioning CSEC needed to strengthen their prior to the start of the 2015/16 season. compliance rules as well as reduce the • EFFICIENCY - Able to achieve an average Days Payable amount of lost documents and breaks Outstanding of less than 31 days. The approval cycle has in the approval chain. declined from 30+ days to 7 days, saving valuable time through highly efficient invoice routing and Management approval The Solution processes. • SCALABILITY - Hours required for CSEC to process their invoices Cortex’s e-invoicing solution was dropped from 8,000 man hours a year to 4,000 man hours. scalable to CSEC’s particular AP • VISIBILITY - CSEC’s monthly spend had been improved due to needs, with 100% invoice capture and the transition from monthly summaries, to the ability to report processing through the Network from on real-time spending. day one. Integration to their Workflow and ERP allowed for seamless transition Go Live One Year Later to in-house operations at CSEC and set them up to take advantage of early pay discounts offered by their Suppliers. The ease of data input to the web- based Cortex Workbench and increased visibility into the invoice approval process in real time (Received, Rejected, Approved, and Paid responses), significantly reduced supplier inquiries. B2B Supplier Conversion AP Services In addition to the technical solution provided, Cortex offered comprehensive “Cortex simplified our complex and time-consuming paper invoice professional services support, focused on handling processes. As a result we gained better visibility into monthly the onboarding of CSEC’s Suppliers to operational expenses, how our business operates and have improved the Network. By running early adoption efficiency across the organization. Now our finance department has campaigns, and post go-live support to time to focus on more strategic tasks.” suppliers, CSEC saw increased adoption rates which improved their automation – Ken Zaba, VP FInance numbers immediately. Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation Measurable Success Since joining the Cortex Network, CSEC has seen an immediate positive impact on their day-to-day operations. CONTACT Phone: 403.219.2838 Toll Free: 1.866.716.6272 Email: [email protected] www.cortex.net.