Norwich-based Compleat Software has emerged as a growing force in the market for automated purchase-to-payment processing systems.

After starting life as a one-man band in 1999, programmer Paul Ashford has enlisted venture capitalists and software industry veterans to help build his inSight procurement and expense management programs into a leading contender in this emerging market.

In its previous guise as Vectra IT, the company picked up clients including the Football Association.

Chief executive Neil Robertson, who joined the company in 2008 as part of Sir Peter Michael's Stockford Group investment, says that the company is now doing four times as much business as it was this time last year. Purchase and payment processing, he points out, is one area that has thrived in the downturn.

"In boom times, finance directors focused on accommodating the growth of the business. Worrying about inefficiencies in the way they buy hasn't been at the top of the agenda," Robertson told Finance Week. "Along comes recession and cash becomes king. There isn't an FD who's not looking at key fundamentals and how they can conserve cash within company."

Without automated systems, many business still rely on the four-part paper document set, he explained. Orders are raised and the first time the finance department sees that it has a commitment is when an invoice turns up. At that point, they have to separate out one of the copies and send it back to the department that ordered it for authorisation.

"A lot of invoices get signed off on the memory of individuals - and up to 40% of spending is approved at month end," he continued. "The paper process is painfully slow and it means people are working on management information that is effectively a good estimate."

This time lag also makes it extremely difficult to track spending against budgets. "There isn't an FD out there who doesn't have an area of maverick spending, potentially rising to tens of thousands of pounds," said Robertson. "We're in recession. Cash is king, yet they have no idea of what the company is spending. If the invoice process is slow and painful, the approval can often take place weeks after the accounts have been closed."

Enter inSight, a web-based application that automates the procurement process from the point at which a requisition is signed off through to approval and payment.

The program is set up with web portal views for buyers, approvers, analysts and system administrators. The work flow controls are configured on installation to set authorisation limits and direct requisitions and invoices to the right people. Depending on the user's profile and what they're buying - for example whether it's an asset or an expense - the workflow engine will deliver the transaction to the next person in the procurement chain and alert them via email.

"When the requisition is approved, a commitment transaction is raised and held against it so the finance department has a full view of the liability and when it's due to be paid," said Robertson.

"When the invoice turns up, you've got an electronic three-part set - if the purchase order matches the delivery note and invoice, you don't need any further approval and we remove the manual process. The vast majority of transactions just go through."

Because the commitments are recorded within the exisisting finance system, inSight provides a record of expenditures against budget and can give control back to the FD. The workflow tools within the application means that the FD can set it up so that any expenditures that fall out of budget have to get direct approval first. "You can instantly lock down all maverick spending," Robertson claimed.

The inSight procurement application is designed to run in tandem with accounting systems, ranging from enterprise-type applications such as CODA, through mid-range ERP products such as the Microsoft Dynamics family. Compleat is also considering the options for Sage 50-compatible and hosted online versions. The software cost for a 500-seat inSight Procurement Enterprise installation would be around £72,000, while a 50-user Professional edition would be around £14,000, Robertson said.

"We've spotted significant interest in the Sage 50 market and there's an opportunity there for a sub-£10,000 system," he added. Because of the Wizard-based approach to configuration, he claimed that inSight implementation added up to around a third of the software licence cost - significantly cheaper to rival systems.

"If look at options for CODA and Microsoft Dynamics GP the overall cost is 30-50% lower than the competitor marketplace. We can put a Professional system in and get the customer live in 5-10 days across the organisation - not 3-6 months. If you remove the complexity and cost,there isn't an FD that doesn't understand the proposition."