The white and green trucks of Løvaas Maskin AS are a familiar sight in the Bergen area and surrounding regions. The company, now 25 years old, employs around 110 people who provide services such as road maintenance, park upkeep, and other public infrastructure work for clients like Bergen Municipality, Avinor, Bergen Port, and many others.
- We are a modern construction company delivering a broad range of services. We have found success in the market with competitive prices and a particular focus on municipal and county framework agreements, says Inger Hansen, CFO of Løvaas Maskin AS
This success led to a significant 160% growth in revenue, from just under NOK 100 million in 2018 to over NOK 250 million in 2022. To manage this growth without expanding the finance department, they decided last fall to implement SEMINE to automate their AP processing.
- We handle 18,000 to 20,000 incoming invoices each year. Around 3,000 of these are internal invoices from our own warehouses and projects, but it’s still a substantial volume—especially since we don’t have a large finance department to manage it, says Hansen.
Another challenge is that, as a 100% project-driven organization, all invoices must include details about the project and sub-project, and these details need to be accurately captured in the invoice management process. This is very important especially for costs that need to be re-invoiced to clients.
The company's rapid development indeed brought some growing pains—160% growth over four years can strain even the most efficient finance department. Automating invoice processing became a low-hanging fruit that could save the department significant work and deliver noticeable results within just a few weeks.
- We eventually found that the systems that worked well when we were smaller didn’t work as well as we grew. For example, we were reliant on specific individuals and vulnerable to absences: Someone often had to work during holidays to ensure all bills were paid, so we could avoid reminders and late fees in late summer, she explains.
A pivotal moment came when the person who previously handled most of the incoming invoices decided to leave, making Hansen realize that the finance department could use this freed-up capacity for other tasks. The company was advised by an independent IT provider to consider SEMINE, which had excellent integration with their ERP system, Visma Business.
- SEMINE approached us in an incredibly professional manner. The demo we received was very clear, concrete, and convincing—the solution appeared easy to use while having the complex functionality needed to address all our challenges, she says.
Additionally, SEMINE offered several features that Hansen immediately saw the value in, such as the ability to track an invoice throughout the entire process and simplified functionality for direct communication with suppliers. The decision to implement was easy, and from there, things moved quickly, according to Hansen.
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- From signing with SEMINE to getting started with the solution, it took just three weeks. But that was only because I had decided we should start on the 15th of the month—we were actually ready a few days earlier and just waiting, she smiles.
Any issues that arose during the setup were quickly resolved. Even the custom solutions Løvaas Maskin had created in Visma were easily integrated within the timelines. Overall, the entire implementation project went very smoothly, and after that, the solution was very easy to use, says the CFO:
- It went very well—from the start, I received feedback that everyone found the solution very user-friendly and easy to learn.
- During the first four weeks, we had regular meetings where SEMINE staff answered any questions we had collected. By that time, we were in a good flow, and now we’ve transitioned to regular support, which we rarely need, says Hansen, satisfied.
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- After about two months, SEMINE had already reached the point where 80% of all invoices were automatically coded correctly and could go straight into the accounts without changes.
Regarding dimensions, automation is at around 75%. Considering that an invoice can have many dimensions, I find three out of four in such a short time quite impressive, she says.
This means they only need to manually process a fraction of the invoices, and at the same time, the bookkeeping is much more consistent. Once SEMINE learns how something should be done, it does it the same way next time. Although there may be some invoices that are difficult to automate for various reasons, Hansen believes they can improve further:
- We’re aiming for 90%, and I believe we can achieve that. We are currently working with suppliers to design their invoices in a way that makes them easier to automate—putting project references in the correct place, for example—and we’re still looking for patterns that can further improve automation. So I’m very optimistic that we can reach 90% within a short time, she says.
However, Hansen emphasizes that Løvaas Maskin isn’t stopping there—SEMINE offers more functionality that can make life easier for the finance department and other parts of the organization:
- Recently, we’ve been looking into Agreement Matching, which SEMINE also offers. This will allow us to enter our purchase agreements into the system, so we can use SEMINE to ensure we get the correct prices from our suppliers on everything we buy. That’s likely our next step, she concludes.