From Paper Chase to Paperless: How Acorda Therapeutics Modernized Procure-to-Pay in NetSuite

Client Quote

"In my 23+ years at Acorda, I have worked with dozens of consulting companies, and Archer ranks right up near the top. I greatly appreciate the extra effort that the Archer team has put forth."

— Senior Finance Leader, Acorda Therapeutics

ABOUT THE CLIENT

Acorda Therapeutics

Acorda Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Pearl River, New York, focused on developing therapies that restore neurological function for patients with Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, and related conditions. Founded in 1995, the company built a commercial-stage portfolio distributed through wholesale pharmaceutical channels to retail and specialty pharmacies across the United States.

As a NASDAQ-listed company navigating the intersection of active R&D programs and commercial operations, Acorda carried the financial infrastructure demands common to publicly traded biopharma firms: audit obligations, multi-department cost centers, clinical vendor commitments, and a growing roster of operational suppliers requiring timely, accurate payment.

Key Outcomes

1. 100% – Paperless AP
2. 0 – Physical filing cabinets
3. Real-time – Cash visibility
4. Audit-ready – Every disbursement

THE CHALLENGE

A Manual AP Process Built on Paper and Trust

Before engaging Archer Insights, Acorda's accounts payable process ran almost entirely on paper. Invoices arrived in physical form or through disconnected email threads and were then routed by hand through a chain of approvals. Clinical directors and executives were required to provide wet signatures on paper documents before any payment could be processed. Once signed, those documents went into physical filing cabinets.

The downstream effects were predictable and costly. Finance had no real-time view into outstanding liabilities or where a given invoice sat in the approval queue. Forecasting cash outflows meant waiting for the monthly bank statement to reconcile against the general ledger. Audit preparation required staff to pull physical folders and reconstruct approval trails by hand.

What was breaking down

1. Invoices were routed physically or via unstructured email, with no system of record tracking their status
2. Approvals required wet signatures from clinical directors and executives, adding days or weeks to processing time
3. Completed approvals were stored in physical filing cabinets with no digital backup or search capability
4. Finance leadership had no real-time view of outstanding liabilities, pending approvals, or cash position between month-end closes
5. Vendor and contract data lived outside the ERP, creating a gap between what was committed and what was approved for payment

What was at stake

1. Audit readiness required manual reconstruction of approval trails that could span weeks of calendar time
2. Without contract visibility linked to purchase orders, overspend against vendor commitments could go undetected until after the fact
3. Cash flow forecasting was reactive rather than proactive, making treasury management difficult in a capital-intensive biopharma environment
4. The manual process did not scale as the company added vendors, clinical programs, and operational complexity

WHY ARCHER INSIGHTS

A Partner Who Understood the Regulated Environment

Acorda needed more than a software implementation. They needed a partner with direct experience in biopharma finance operations who could engineer workflows that would hold up to auditor scrutiny while actually reducing the burden on the people who had to use them every day.

Archer Insights was selected based on its exclusive focus on life sciences companies in NetSuite and its track record of delivering procure-to-pay solutions in regulated environments. Unlike generalist implementation partners, Archer brought prebuilt configurations and module logic specifically designed for biopharma AP, including Delegation of Authority frameworks, vendor onboarding protocols, and contract lifecycle management adapted to the realities of clinical-stage and commercial pharma operations.

THE SOLUTION

End-to-End Procure-to-Pay Transformation

Archer Insights digitized Acorda's entire procure-to-pay process within NetSuite, connecting vendor onboarding, contract management, purchase order controls, invoice processing, approvals, and banking into a single automated workflow.

Archer Procure-to-Pay Flow

1. Vendor Onboarding - Automated intake & vetting | Vendor portal, compliance checks, auto-activation in NS
2. Contract (CLM) - Terms, limits, expiration | Spend limits locked to contract; POs blocked if over threshold
3. PO Enforcement - Contract limit validation | If $1M contract, $20K remaining: $50K PO is blocked automatically
4. Invoice & Approval - DOA routing via OCR | Clinical director or CFO approval based on DOA rules and dollar amount
5. ACH/EFT Payment - Bank reconciliation in NS | JP Morgan, SVB direct integration; daily auto-reconciliation

Each stage is enforced within NetSuite. No external portals, paper, or manual handoffs.

What Archer Built

1. Automated Vendor Onboarding

Every new vendor now enters through Archer's structured onboarding module within NetSuite. The module collects required documentation, runs compliance checks, and activates the vendor record in the system without requiring finance staff to manually create or validate entries. This creates an auditable record of when each vendor was onboarded, who approved them, and what documentation was provided.

2. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) with PO Enforcement

Contracts are created and managed directly in NetSuite using Archer's CLM module. Each contract carries a defined spend limit, term dates, and associated vendor. When a purchase order is created against a contracted vendor, NetSuite checks the remaining available balance under that contract in real time.

If a contract was originally written for $1,000,000 and $980,000 has already been committed or invoiced, a new purchase order for $50,000 will be blocked automatically before it can be submitted for approval. Finance leadership is notified, and the requestor must either reduce the PO amount, request a contract amendment, or obtain exception approval through a documented workflow. Overspend does not happen quietly after the fact.

This level of control is particularly valuable for CRO agreements, clinical supply contracts, and large service agreements where scope creep can quietly consume committed budget across months of activity.

3. OCR-Powered Invoice Capture and Routing

Invoices submitted electronically or via email are captured through optical character recognition, which extracts vendor, amount, and line-item data and creates a bill record in NetSuite without manual data entry. The system then routes the bill to the appropriate approver based on department and dollar amount.

4. Multi-Tier Approval Workflows Tied to Delegation of Authority

Archer configured NetSuite's approval logic to enforce Acorda's Delegation of Authority policy. A routine supply invoice routes to the department manager. A clinical research organization payment above a defined threshold routes to the clinical director. Anything above a second threshold goes to finance leadership or the CFO. All of this happens automatically, with email notifications and the ability to approve directly from email when the next approver is identified.

Every approval creates a time-stamped, immutable record in NetSuite that auditors can pull instantly. The physical filing cabinet was made unnecessary by design.

5. Direct Bank Integration and Automated Reconciliation

Archer connected Acorda's banking relationships directly to NetSuite, enabling ACH and EFT payments to be executed from within the ERP without logging into a separate bank portal. Cleared transactions from the bank are matched against NetSuite records on a daily basis, eliminating the end-of-month reconciliation crunch and giving treasury real-time visibility into cash position.

MODULES DEPLOYED

Archer Module Summary

OUTCOMES

What Changed After Go-Live

Operational results

1. Physical filing cabinets were fully eliminated. Every vendor payment is backed by a digital, time-stamped approval trail retrievable in seconds.
2. Invoice processing time dropped substantially as OCR capture and automated routing removed manual handoffs from the workflow.
3. Wet signature requirements were replaced with system-enforced, role-based electronic approvals aligned to the company's DOA policy.
4. Vendor onboarding moved from an ad hoc, finance-managed process to a structured automated intake that creates a compliance record from day one.

Finance and control results

1. Cash visibility became real-time. Finance leadership no longer waits for the monthly bank statement to understand the company's cash position.
2. Contract overspend became structurally impossible at the PO level. Commitments against vendor contracts are tracked continuously and enforced before a dollar is committed.
3. Audit preparation time dropped significantly. Auditors are provided direct NetSuite access to disbursement histories, approval chains, and supporting documentation rather than requesting manual reconstructions.
4. Bank reconciliation shifted from a monthly effort to a daily automated process, eliminating the labor and error risk of end-of-month closes.

THE ARCHER EDGE

What Makes This Different From a Standard NetSuite Implementation

NetSuite ships with general AP, procurement, and banking capabilities. What Archer Insights brings is the configuration logic, module depth, and life sciences workflow design that makes those capabilities work the way a biopharma finance team actually operates.

Generalist NetSuite partners configure software. Archer engineers operational workflows. The distinction shows up in the details: DOA policies that match the company's actual approval authority matrix, contract controls that sit at the PO level rather than only at invoice review, vendor onboarding that produces an auditable compliance record rather than just a vendor record, and bank integrations that eliminate third-party payment platforms rather than adding another system for finance to manage.

Archer also brings domain knowledge that reduces implementation time and post-go-live friction. Configurations that a generalist partner might spend weeks researching and testing are built on frameworks Archer has refined across dozens of biopharma, CDMO, and commercial-stage pharma implementations.

Archer Insights is an Inc. 5000 company and a five-time NetSuite Alliance Partner Spotlight Award winner (2022 through 2026) recognized specifically for its work in the BioTech and BioPharma sector. Every engagement is scoped and delivered by a team that works exclusively in life sciences.

Call to Action

If your AP process still runs on paper, email chains, or disconnected bank portals, Archer can show you what the transition looks like for a company at your stage and complexity.

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