Scaling Spend Control for a Life Sciences Service Provider
Industry: Service Provider & Laboratory Testing
Service: Procure-to-Pay Automation
Client Background
An ISO-certified company delivering specialized compliance and technical services to the life sciences industry since 1998. The client offers Calibration, Certification, Environmental Monitoring, Tech-Staffing, and Validation Services, with a strong reputation for technical excellence and regulatory alignment with FDA and ISO standards.
Challenges
- Rapid Growth Impacting Spend Oversight – With a doubling of employees and an 80% increase in customer base, the company struggled to maintain effective control over operational spending.
- Outgrown Procurement Systems – The legacy system was unable to scale with business growth, resulting in inefficiencies and a lack of spend visibility.
- Overloaded Senior Management – Executives who were once involved in daily accounting tasks found it difficult to track and manage spend as the company expanded.
- Manual Data Entry Risks – The absence of integration with financial systems led to redundant data entry and limited ability to analyze spend patterns in real-time.
How Did APS Help?
- Integrated Procurement Automation – APS offered real-time spend analysis, integrated vendor catalogues (including punch-outs to Amazon), and seamless connection with NetSuite to eliminate duplicate entry.
- Accelerated Implementation and Onboarding – The APS team ensured a smooth, phased rollout with hands-on support, enabling full adoption by the accounting team within a few weeks.
- User-Friendly Interface for Broader Adoption – The intuitive platform empowered both finance and non-finance users to navigate purchasing workflows and maintain proper budget categorization.
Results Achieved
- Improved spend control and forecasting accuracy by 40%, enabling the company to track quarterly budgets more effectively and prevent overages.
- Standardized over 95% of purchasing activity under one centralized system, ensuring consistency and compliance across departments.
- Reduced average purchase processing time by 60%, cutting down request-to-approval cycles from 5 days to under 2 days.
- Saved 120+ manual hours per month in data entry and reconciliation, freeing up finance resources for strategic tasks.
- Enabled 100+ employees across departments to create purchase requisitions with integrated vendor catalogs, reducing dependency on finance for day-to-day ordering.
- Eliminated duplicate entries and invoice errors by 90%, thanks to real-time sync with NetSuite and three-way matching.
APS provided the client with a scalable, easy-to-use solution that replaced legacy limitations with a unified system for spend control, purchasing efficiency, and financial planning, positioning the company for sustainable growth in the regulated life sciences space.
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