Walmart Canada revamps supply chain invoicing with blockchain

Walmart Canada is reducing costs and errors associated with supply chain invoices.

The Canadian subsidiary of discount giant Walmart is leveraging the DL Freight enterprise blockchain solution from Toronto-based DLT Labs to streamline its entire supply chain invoicing process. The DL Freight rollout is part of Walmart Canada’s larger $3.5 billion initiative to transform stores, digital operations, and technology.

Blockchain technology enables Walmart to achieve real-time transparency and share one ledger of trusted facts, eliminating expensive and time-consuming checking and reconciliation.

Walmart Canada currently generates auto-approved invoices for its 500,000 annual shipments. In addition, the retailer now automates accessorial charge calculations and has been able to eliminate its external invoice reconciliation process. As a result, Walmart Canada has scaled back its previous 11-step invoicing workflow to five steps, from tender to invoice payment.

By integrating DL Freight into its existing transportation management and legaqcy systems, the retailer was able to rapidly deploy the solution. Results have included a 97% decrease in invoice disputes between Walmart Canada and its carriers (from highs at over 70% to below 2% across the platform), expedited payments for its 70-plus third-party freight carriers. The company says it has saved millions of dollars in savings by automating inefficiencies.

“The biggest change for Walmart Canada since using DL Freight is the reduction in manual work to resolve disputes,” said John Bayliss, senior VP, logistics and supply chain, Walmart Canada. “The cost and the waste associated with chasing dispute resolution has come down dramatically from over 70% disputes of our invoices at peak times to under 2% with the DL Freight solution. We are seeing the proof of the waste that can be wrung out of the system from this additive technology.”