Financial Supply Chain Bolero Financial Supply Chain Solutions Bolero Application Suites BoleroAdvise Bolero's Trusted Trade Platform			Importer Overview The Financial Supply Chain is increasingly recognised as an area offering significant potential for generating bottom-line improvements and creating competitive advantage. However, many of the core processes underpinning International Trade have hardly changed since trading began. At Bolero, we believe there’s a huge opportunity to improve these processes and deliver substantial financial and business returns for all parties involved in the trade process. We work closely with corporate Importers to optimise the integration of their trade activity with the two communities on which their trade processes are dependent and highly inter-related – on one side the Global Trade Banks and Financial Institutions, and, on the other, freight forwarders and broader logistics service providers. From an Importer’s perspective, the Financial Supply Chain involves the full procurement-to-payment process and specifically the end-to-end trade processes and information that drive a company’s cash, accounts and working capital. Unlike the Physical Supply Chain – which has seen improvements ranging from containerisation to fulfilment management/just-in-time inventory – there still remain significant gaps in the Financial Supply Chain, particularly in the optimisation of working capital efficiency, the development of vendor/client relationships and overall financial performance. For Importers the gaps between the Physical and Financial Supply Chain are making it more difficult to manage daily reconciliation of invoices to purchase orders, and the negotiation of financing and the precise management of payments. Typical challenges include: Reducing the time needed to create, transfer and process paper documentation Eliminating the cost and errors associated with the manual creation and reconciliation of documentation Lack of transparency in inventory and cash positions when goods are in the supply chain Disputes arising from inaccurate or missing data The physical disconnection between all the different parties in the Financial Supply Chain The spread of fragmented ‘point’ solutions that don’t address the complete end-to-end processes of the trade cycle Because Bolero has been designed to act as a platform that brings together all the constituent parties involved in International Trade, it can provide importers with a powerful framework to help address many of the key challenges they face. Bolero’s Trusted Trade Platform is bank-neutral and scalable to all settlement types, documents and parties. It also has cross-industry applicability, so makes an ideal platform to help importers address some of the key issues that can cause friction in the vendor/client relationship. Optimising Working Capital Bolero directly addresses Importers’ requirement to optimise the performance of their working capital by working with their Banks to unlock operational efficiency savings with Accounts Payable (A/P) processing. A/P processing involves matching received shipping documents with final orders, making payments, and handling queries and disputes with suppliers. Bolero helps Importers to optimise working capital by reducing credit costs, reducing Documentary Credit lines, reducing supplier credit and helping Importers to take advantage of favourable discount terms. Reducing documentary credit lines - Documentary Credits represent a significant transaction cost for some companies, while other large Importers are able to extract highly beneficial terms from their Banks. This can mask the cost of maintaining credit lines on a balance sheet to service documentary credits. Bolero’s Open Account suite provides Importers with the risk control that they require, while also enabling banks to extend credit to suppliers on favourable terms Reducing supplier credit - For many Importers there isn’t enough time to reconcile shipping documents with the order before making payment. Often the only alternative is to pay against the invoice and to issue debit and credit notes after the fact if there are discrepancies. In these scenarios, debit notes are far more frequent than credit notes, with Importers effectively having to extend credit to suppliers until the next payment is due. By increasing the productivity of Accounts Payable staff, Bolero’s solutions enable full reconciliation of shipping documents against the order before payment is due Taking advantage of favourable discount terms – Many Importers also don’t have the time to take advantage of discount terms provided by their suppliers because they can’t reconcile documents quickly enough. These terms can prove advantageous for both parties, providing the Importer with an attractive discount, while also giving the Exporter quicker access to cash Improving Account Payable Productivity Bolero’s solutions help Importers to achieve significant A/P productivity gains and improve vendor and client relationships by: Ensuring that there is no disagreement between the Importer and Exporter on the terms of the order, even if there are repeated amendments Reducing the opportunity for document discrepancies by linking order data directly with data in the shipping documents Reconciling documents against the order in real time, and providing exception reports to both Exporter and Importer that enable the rapid handling of queries and disputes Enabling the Importer to generate payment instructions automatically on the basis of accepted invoices Through increased efficiency and accuracy, importers can reduce their A/P processing costs by more than 50 per cent. In an area representing as much as 1 per cent of revenue in some companies, releasing the value in this area can have a significant bottom line impact. Enhancing Financial Performance Working with Bolero helps Importers to manage the progressive acceleration, automation and optimisation of the Financial Supply Chain processes that are leading to paperless trade. Bolero provides a complete business platform incorporating information, document content, document context, a legal framework and a robust foundation for the provision of trade finance. This platform can play a significant part in helping Importers improve their supply chain liquidity – benefiting particularly from capturing payment discounts and A/P operational savings. Importers will also benefit from greater transaction transparency. Early visibility of approved purchase invoices, for example, can be worth a lot to both Importers and their suppliers. In addition to more obvious savings from reductions in the time needed to create, transfer and process paper documentation, Importers can also use Bolero’s Trusted Trade Platform to help reduce their Days Payable Outstanding (DPO). This can lead to an enhanced ability to standardise payment terms and ease cash flow pressures. Together these benefits combine to provide Importers with real opportunities to optimise their financial performance. While larger Exporters, for example, are adept at managing discount terms, many small and medium-sized suppliers do not have these facilities, and are more reliant on comparatively expensive credit options to provide post-shipment cash flow. The Bolero Finance Management module helps Importers, in co-ordination with their Banks, to provide supplier financing based on approved invoices. Working with Bolero, Banks can offer discounted payment terms to a supplier based upon the Importer’s future payables. This also creates an excellent opportunity for Importers to share discounts with their banking partners.