Shogun Japan introduces invoiceAgent to electronically approve invoices and reduce approval time by one-fourth to comply with the Electronic Books Preservation Act

WingArc1st Inc. is pleased to announce that Shogun Japan Co. Ltd has introduced invoiceAgent Documents, a document management system compliant with the Electronic Books Preservation Act, and invoiceAgent AI OCR, which converts forms into data with highly accurate character recognition.

■Background

The Shogun Japan Group operates a diversified business centered on barbering and beauty services, including Quick Cut BB, a hair-cut specialty store, and operates approximately 100 stores and 70 franchise stores across Japan.

Previously, the invoice processing workflow involved the store manager at the head office checking and approving the invoices for the stores for which he or she was responsible, and then management approving and settling the invoices. Invoices for supplies, cleaning services, and other items sent to the accounting department at the head office for each directly managed store often did not clearly indicate the name of the store, which required time and effort to confirm with the store manager. In addition, since the company operates stores nationwide, management and store managers often traveled on business, and the approval process sometimes stalled while they were away, sometimes taking up to four weeks for final approval. 

In addition, two accounting staff members spent half of every business day visually checking the previous day's sales results to ensure that the information in the business management system was updated correctly by reconciling the amounts in the daily sales reports submitted by fax from approximately 200 stores with the amounts recorded by the POS system. Therefore, they considered any solutions to reduce the workload for inputting tasks and checking sales results, and introduced invoiceAgent Documents and invoiceAgent AI OCR, so that approval requests could be drafted and circulated even during business trips.

The main points of adopting invoiceAgent are as follows:
・Document management compliant with the Electronic Books Preservation Act.
・Electronic invoice approval and AI OCR capabilities
・Can be built on one platform

■Effects of introduction

They began using the invoiceAgent AI OCR function in the summer of 2023 to electronically approve invoices and process daily sales reports in compliance with the Electronic Books Preservation Act.

・Migration did not require changes to existing workflow or work procedures.
・The process from invoice creation to approval has been reduced to a quarter of the time (from four weeks to one week).
・Data entry and matching from daily sales reports, which used to take two people four hours to complete manually, can now be completed by one person in one and a half hours.

In the invoice approval process, invoices scanned by the accountant are saved on the file server and uploaded to invoiceAgent, enabling document management in compliance with the Electronic Books Preservation Act, as well as drafting approval requests and automatically forwarding them to the store manager. Invoices for which the name of the store is unknown can be sent for confirmation in the workflow and forwarded to the subsequent approver. 

The sales confirmation work from the daily sales report was automated by receiving faxes from the head office as electronic data and making it paperless, then using invoiceAgent AI OCR to read the sales amount from the daily sales report, and using UiPath, an RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tool, to check the sales amount against POS data. The sales amount is then read by invoiceAgent AI OCR and reconciled with POS data automatically by UiPath, a RPA (Robotic Process Automation) tool. This has resulted in a significant improvement in operational efficiency, including leveling the workload that increases after holidays and reducing the burden of transcribing from daily sales reports. 

Shogun Japan found that the new document management platform not only improves operational efficiency but also addresses the shortage of employees. In order to further expand its functionality, Shogun Japan plans to implement a digital workflow that will allow users to circulate approvals using tablets and other devices even while traveling on business.

■Usecase
https://www.wingarc.com/product/usecase/977.html　(Japanese)

■About Shogun Japan
Business Description: Shogun Japan operates various concepts of barbershops and beauty salons, including Quick Cut BB, a 15-minute 1,400 yen haircut specialty store, as well as eyelash extensions, nail salons, and restaurants, both as a franchise headquarters and as a franchisee. Over the more than 25 years since its founding, the company has expanded its business by emphasizing the three values of "people first," "innovation," and "rationalization," and by always keeping the customer in mind.

URL：https://shogun.bz/