“I led the project to transform Asda’s cash management operations, making significant cost savings”
The Grocer – 2 June 1995
Asda Cuts Paper Mountain
Asda hopes to save time and paper costs by upgrading its accounting and cash handling system.
The group’s 203 stores will be linked together using the Finance Controller System from Exepos. This will run on PCs in the stores and will be linked to head office.
The system is designed to cut down on the amount of paper work needed for daily cash handling and accounting. Asda says it will save over 2.25 million forms a year. Each store was previously filling in at least 30 forms a day.
Asda treasury manager Iain Spence says this equated to “a paper mountain over 1,500 feet high each year”.
“This system will radically reduce paperwork and improve efficiency,” he adds.
The system can be used to administer the movement of internal funds such as cash office accounting or petty cash, as well as oversee the banking of weekly and daily deposits. Manual counting is virtually eliminated.
Asda public relations manager Alan Preece says: “It will combine our in-house management and accounting departments as well as reinforce Asda’s commitment towards investing in new technology.”
New electronic weighing scales, developed by Cashmaster International in Scotland, transmit data directly to Finance Controller.