As the team at Tango Card started partnering with more vendors, the process of paying off invoices became increasingly problematic.
Every time a vendor bill came in, someone in accounts payable would have to exchange emails with the colleague who owned the vendor relationship, where they’d ask about the accuracy of the invoice amount, whether someone else needed to review the invoice, etc.
This process proved to be time consuming for all parties; but more than that, it increased the likelihood of making late payments to vendors and it risked non-compliance with specific laws and regulations.
The Accounts Payable team at Tango Card, an incentive-delivery technology platform, decided to partner with their colleagues in BT—Adam Cole, the Senior Director of Business Systems, and Carson Turner, a Business Systems Analyst—to tackle this head on.
Once Cole and Turner reviewed the issue and assessed their options diligently, they decided to use Workato’s Approvals Bot Accelerator to transform the process.
Want to learn more?
You can catch everything Cole and Turner shared by watching the recording of their session from Automate.
Building off of a solid foundation
As a Workato Accelerator, Approval Bot offered the team at Tango Card a tried-and-true solution with the core functionality already built out.
Moreover, the Accelerator came with a guide on how they could customize the Approval Bot to meet their specific needs, leading them to deliver the following solution:
1. Once a vendor bill comes in, Approval Bot messages the designated approver in Slack. The message includes key information from the invoice as well as a few buttons to choose from: Approve, Reject, or Contact (which Cole and Turner added).
2. If the approver clicked on Contact, Approval Bot would create a new Slack channel between the approver and requestor; there, the approver and requestor could chat about any of their questions or concerns.
3. Once the bill gets approved, Approval Bot marks the bill record in the ERP system (NetSuite) as approved. The bot also records the transcript of the conversation in a CSV file, uploads the file to Box and to the associated bill record in their ERP system, and archives the Slack channel.
Significant time savings, a more seamless experience, and greater auditability
Carson went on to share that it was his first time working with Slack Bots; and while there was still a learning curve in using them, the Accelerator proved incredibly valuable: He estimated that it saved him 4 days compared to his alternative learning options. In addition, since their team didn’t have to worry about building the foundational functions of Approval Bot, they saved roughly two weeks on implementing the solution.
Tango Card’s Business Technology team weren’t the only beneficiaries.
With Approval Bot in place, requestors and approvers could stay in the platform they’re already working in—Slack. This has provided time savings for both groups, and it’s made their approvals experience much easier. Also, by instantly recording and uploading the transcripts of conversations into Box and NetSuite, auditing vendor bills has become a much simpler task for the finance team.
While the BT team at Tango Card now has an effective solution in place, they’re by no means satisfied. They can already see themselves using the bot for other approvals processes; they’re also beginning to explore additional Accelerators to see what other pre-built solutions they can leverage and build on top of.
Given the team’s success in implementing Approval Bot, we have full confidence in their ability to transform other processes with our Accelerators.
