The portal has been trialled since October 2019 with the help of 12 of the NHS’s largest suppliers. The Accounts Payable portal, developed by ELFS Shared Services (ELFS) and Brightmast, a UK-based cognitive and AI software provider, will help suppliers resolve invoice issues and queries without the need for human intervention, reducing call and email volumes from suppliers into Accounts Payable teams across the NHS.
After the registration process, suppliers can access the portal which uses AI to interactively answer queries and resolve issues that would normally be handled by Accounts Payable teams in NHS Trusts and the ELFS shared service centre on behalf of its NHS partners.
For the 800 suppliers that have so far registered to use the new service, AI is handling over 80% of their queries, which is freeing up staff time to deal with more pressing and complex issues. The service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
ASK AP is supporting 15 Trusts and ELFS plans to expand the number of Trusts using the service by making the portal available to Trusts not currently using shared services and providing their finance function in-house.
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