In this ‘Brief Encounter’, Ken Deeks of The Amber Group interviews Tony Gavin, Head of IT at GTA.

Tony said:

“Before Celaton inSTREAM™ was deployed we had lots of problems just tracking down invoices. The invoicing processes were split in two with the invoices from hotels and other travel suppliers being processed in India while our overhead invoices were processed here in the UK. One of the problems we suffered with was overhead invoices getting lost in transit, often appearing in Delhi. We would have no access or visibility of these which didn’t help us or the suppliers who were chasing for payment. A great deal of time and effort was wasted on chasing these down or obtaining copies for processing. It was a nightmare.

Now that we use inSTREAM™ we just don’t have those issues, it gives us complete global visibility that we didn’t have before. I used to spend a huge amount of time on invoice trails, that time has now been freed up to get on with my job.

It was essential that we got this right. Not only could late payment impact on our relationships with suppliers, it could also be harmful to the business.

The benefit to GTA is that we are now able to pay our invoices well within contracted times and, as a result, we now have a better relationship with our suppliers. Finally the support I get from our Celaton team is very good. If I have any issues they can remotely review and resolve them quickly.”

About GTA

Founded over 30 years ago, Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA) are the worlds largest independent supplier of global tourism products to the travel industry. A part of Kuoni, GTA has annual revenues in excess of £450 million, the company serves a worldwide network of clients, employing over 1700 travel professionals throughout 25 global offices, 700 of which are based at its London head office and financial centre.

Every day, Celaton’s inSTREAM^™ streamlines and automates the global handling of over of 20,000 invoices in up to 40 different languages into GTA’s global finance system, JD Edwards. Read more