With total assets of more than $31.9 billion, Union Planters (UP) Corporation was the largest bank holding company headquartered in Tennessee and among the 30 largest bank holding companies in the United States. Union Planters Bank, NA, the principal banking subsidiary, was founded in 1869 and operates branches in 12 states. Union Planters offers a full range of commercial and consumer financial solutions through a network of 717 banking offices, 925 ATMs and the resources of specialized business units.

With an annual telecommunications budget is in excess of $28 million, Union Planters processes more than 1,000 invoices a month from approximately 250 vendors. Invoice processing was labor-intensive and consumed the time of several key telecom professionals each month. Due to the sheer volume of paperwork, the company was challenged to keep up with the invoices and pay them on time. This involved spread sheets, paper vouchers, inter-office routing for approvals and repetitive data entry in various departments. There was a great deal of room for error and no way to accurately verify, optimize and forecast telecom spending in a timely manner.

After receiving presentations from several companies about outsourcing, Union Planters selected Asentinel's telecom expense management software package because the company didn't want to lose control of managing their telecom spending. After an intensive in-house audit, Union Planters installed Asentinel's software package on an in-house server. Using EDI, vendors began transmitting electronic invoices in late 2001.

Asentinel took a paper-intensive process and converted it to a real-time automated system that analyzes every line item in each invoice against vendor contracts, hidden costs, and active inventory, while flagging the exceptions. In the first six months, Union Planters reported one-time savings of $411,000 with recurring annual savings of more than $280,000. The software's robust functionality enabled Union Planters to identify exceptions and billing errors so detailed in nature that they were missed during the company's in-house audits. Union Planters has gained control and visibility of their telecom spending and is now able to manage and forecast budgets with greater accuracy.

The new streamlined automated process also has improved productivity, providing added savings. Union Planters was able to redirect the efforts of two full-time employees that were previously dedicated to processing invoices. Telecom analysts are now able to focus on specific and actual billing issues instead of processing paperwork. Union Planters management reports that job satisfaction has increased and turnover has been reduced.