Digitalization of core finance processes with dox42 & Nintex K2

Merck is a global leader in Health Care, Life Science and Electronics. It was founded in 1668, it is one of the oldest pharmaceutical and chemical companies worldwide. Our ambition is to leverage science and technology to achieve human progress.

Within our “Picasso” project, we were looking at Finance processes at Merck, specifically at inter-company cross charging. We use the term cross charging to define invoicing of services and different kind of costs between Merck daughter companies. Cross charging for services between the Merck entities is one of our core finance processes.

The challenge that we are facing is that Merck has around 400 subsidiaries and we have many different underlying finance ERP-systems. We are posting invoices into 16 different ERP-systems. Therefore, we had to design a global process that would allow all employees worldwide to request inter-company invoices and to bring all to one platform, although we have so many different ERP-systems.

Together with Bridging IT we implemented “Picasso”, which was aimed to improve the user experience, efficiency, and compliance in inter-company cross charging at Merck. Our low-code solution is based on Nintex K2, dox42 and RPA.

The dox42 Server is used to connect to many different data sources and brings the information into the system for easy processing inside the system. dox42 templates reflect the information that is collected through a form that the user fills out at the beginning of the process. Within the template, we can build in the information and rules in such a powerful and quick way that almost anything is possible.

We achieved all the goals that we had set before the project started:

• Ease of use – We made the process easier for all Merck employees, even if they are from Finance or Accounting, and gave them a tool where they are guided through the whole process.
• Quality and speed – We now have fewer delays in invoice exchange and posting. We also have less discussions or misunderstandings about invoices and save a lot of time across many different business units.
• Compliance – It is now easier and faster to be compliant with our tax and Group guidelines. Now we have clear business ownership and have increased the overall transparency of the invoicing process.

Since the project has been launched, we have created more than 15,000 invoices that accumulate to several billions of transaction volume. Based also on customer and end-user feedback, we have overall greatly improved the process and we are very happy about that.