Charlotte, N.C.—Dec. 12, 2011—Piedmont Natural Gas has gone live with a suite of purchasing and invoice processing solutions from Verian. Piedmont Natural Gas serves more than one million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Having outgrown internal purchasing and work order systems with limited integration and functionality, Piedmont Natural Gas sought a new third-party solution that could improve the company’s purchasing, invoice processing, and asset and inventory management.
Piedmont Natural Gas chose to implement Verian’s Purchase Manager, Invoice Manager, Asset Manager and Inventory Manager modules in a private-hosted environment. At Piedmont Natural Gas, the Verian system integrates directly into PeopleSoft.
Piedmont Natural Gas employees are now using the system to procure everything from construction materials and contractor services to business cards and office supplies, browsing through catalogs and punch-outs with negotiated pricing built in. Field contractors enter work orders and materials within the same system. Suppliers submit invoices through e-invoicing via XML or through Verian’s Supplier Portal, where all suppliers can check payment status or flip a PO into an invoice with just a few clicks.
When invoices come in, they are approved via email workflow and automatically matched within the Verian system. Piedmont Natural Gas is also using the system to track inventory levels and the location of assets. In the near future, the system’s spend data will help the purchasing team consolidate spending and negotiate procurement contracts.
“We were able to deliver the exact functionality, deployment method and ERP integration Piedmont Natural Gas needed,” said Tehseen Ali Dahya, president and CEO of Verian. “This is yet another great example of an organization taking advantage of our platform’s superior flexibility to create a unique solution that will fit them.”
