Customer story highlights

• Saved 1,920 hours per year through AP Automation
• 85% of invoices processed without finance team intervention
• 95% of invoices automatically matched to purchase orders
• Invoice processing costs reduced by 66%

About Waipā District Council

Waipā District Council serves a growing community of around 53,000 residents in New Zealand’s Waikato region. The district includes the towns of Te Awamutu, Cambridge, Kihikihi, Pirongia, Ōhaupō, and Leamington, and is responsible for a wide range of local services — from infrastructure and community facilities to regulatory functions and environmental management.

The Council’s finance team plays a central role in supporting organisational decision-making and financial sustainability.

Waipā District Council’s website.

The challenge: manual processing and lost invoices

Before implementing AP Automation, Waipā District Council relied on a paper-based accounts payable process that was time-consuming, inconsistent, and difficult to trace. Invoices were sent via email or internal mail and often passed through several hands before reaching the finance team for manual entry.

This created delays, increased the risk of lost or duplicated invoices, and made it difficult to maintain auditability.

“There was no traceability, no integration, and lots of manual handling,” said Richard Henderson, Manager Information Services at Waipā District Council.

“If a supplier invoice went missing, we were basically checking inboxes to figure out where it was in the payment process.”

The finance team had limited visibility into where invoices were in the approval process, and suppliers – particularly smaller, local businesses - often faced long wait times for payments.

“If one team member sent the invoice, there was no record of it for other people. No one knew where things were at,” said Farrah Templeton, TechnologyOne Finance Systems Lead, Waipā District Council.

Manual controls also made compliance and coding more difficult, while the absence of built-in checks left the organisation open to risk.

Although the Council had already made improvements by implementing electronic purchase orders, accounts payable being disconnected still created too many inefficiencies and put pressure on the finance team.

The solution? AP Automation with TechnologyOne Financials

These challenges stood in the way of Waipā’s broader goal: aligning with its Council-endorsed ‘digital by default’ principle.

“The idea behind ‘digital by default’ is that we look to embed digital processes as our first option, not something we layer over the top. It’s about enabling staff and the community with tools that make things easier, not more complex,” Mr. Henderson explained.

This strategy shaped their adoption of TechnologyOne Financials and a broader OneCouncil footprint. After rolling out electronic purchase orders and Contracts, the Council turned its attention to AP, a function still reliant on email, spreadsheets, and paper trails.

The decision was made to implement Transaction Import Processing (TIP) and Business Process Automation (BPA), enabling system-driven validation, invoice matching, and workflow-based approvals.

“Bringing in TIP and BPA meant we had traceability. You could see at a glance who the invoice was sitting with, what stage it was at, whether it was waiting on goods receipting or approval, etc.,” Ms. Templeton said.

The shift also introduced system-level checks that previously relied on staff for intervention, ensuring tax details, coding, and IRD requirements were met automatically.

“That was now being done by the system, so our staff members could focus on other things.”

While the benefits were clear, the Council acknowledges the implementation required careful change management. Staff were used to working in their own ways, and embedding new digital controls meant addressing habits as well as workflows.

“Getting people to adopt a series of digital controls required a lot of change management,” Mr. Henderson said.

“We had to work through how they should work — not just how they were working.”

However, once the implementation was complete, the difference for the Council was night and day.

The results: 85% automation = over 1,900 hours saved

Since going live with AP Automation, Waipā District Council has achieved substantial process improvements across its finance function. Manual handling has decreased dramatically, validation is now handled by the system, and staff have real-time visibility over where invoices sit in the approval cycle.

Over the past 12 months alone, 85% of invoices were processed without any accounts payable intervention, and 95% were automatically matched to purchase orders, allowing the team to focus on higher-value tasks.

By automating the most time-consuming steps in invoice processing, the Council has reduced manual effort by more than 80%, saving an estimated 1,920 hours per year across its finance team.

“We’ve got 85% automation through the business where finance doesn’t need to intervene at all,” said Janice Downard, Internal Assurance Advisor at Council.

“What that means is our AP officers are using their time for reconciliations, GST prep, and supplier statement checks — rather than just data entry.”

The cost per invoice has also dropped significantly. According to Council’s internal reporting dashboard, which tracks both manual interventions and efficiency gains, Waipā has achieved a 66% reduction in invoice processing costs.

These improvements have directly helped local suppliers as well. With weekly payment runs now standard, and less administrative delay, many invoices are paid within days.

“We’re a lot faster in our payments. There are instances when we can get the payment out within a week,” Ms. Downard said.

“A lot of our small businesses are local and getting them paid faster helps with their cash flow.”

What’s next for Waipā District Council

With AP Automation now embedded and delivering measurable returns, Waipā District Council is continuing to expand its digital transformation efforts, guided by the same principles that shaped its approach to accounts payable.

The Council already uses a broad suite of TechnologyOne solutions, including Enterprise Content Management, Enterprise Asset Management, Human Resources & Payroll, and more.

Having consolidated these core functions onto a single SaaS platform, Waipā is well positioned to extend automation and insight across even more areas of its operations.

“We’re not bringing in modern tools just for the sake of it. We’re constantly on the lookout for new innovative ways of working that allow us to be as efficient as possible so we can make the most of the ratepayer dollar,” Mr. Henderson said.

“Embracing a single source solution like OneCouncil saves us from managing a range of disparate systems.

“There is a whole raft of things we don’t have to worry about because integration, performance, and security are all taken care of by TechnologyOne and we haven’t added extra layers of complexity by trying to mould the new technology around old processes.”

When asked what advice they would offer to other councils beginning similar projects, the message was clear: start with the big picture and be prepared to challenge the way things have always been done.

“It comes down to reducing complexity,” Mr. Henderson said.

“By having a strategic approach to the different tools councils need, you can focus on user adoption and configuration — not infrastructure or custom development.”

For Waipā, the real impact of its transformation isn’t just measured in hours or dollars saved. It’s growing confidence that its systems can adapt, scale, and continue delivering value to both staff and the wider community.