How Sinclar Group Centralized AP Across Six Entities — Without Adding Headcount

About Sinclar Group

Sinclar Group Forest Products is a family-owned forestry and lumber manufacturing company headquartered in Prince George, British Columbia. Now in its third generation of family leadership and approaching 64 years in business, Sinclar operates several sawmills that produce stud lumber for residential framing.

The company employs approximately 450 people and is committed to sustainable forest management, reforestation, community partnerships, and environmental leadership. Sinclar also operates related businesses, including Winton Homes and Cottages, a Prince George-based provider of prefabricated home and cottage packages across Western Canada.

The Challenge:
Sinclar needed a more consistent, scalable, and secure AP process across six legal entities.

As Sinclar migrated from Microsoft NAV to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, the company saw an opportunity to rethink how accounts payable was managed across the organization. With six legal entities spanning forestry, lumber manufacturing, pellet production, and prefabricated home packages through Winton Homes and Cottages, AP had become increasingly complex.

Invoices were arriving at multiple physical locations, and each operation had its own way of handling approvals, coding, and document storage. Some invoices were routed directly to individual sites, while others required follow-up between operations, finance, and AP. Finding a specific invoice could mean calling the relevant location and asking someone to search through a filing cabinet for a paper copy.

This decentralized process limited visibility. Finance teams did not always have a clear, real-time view of where an invoice was in the approval process, whether it had been coded correctly, or when it would be ready for payment. For a business with seasonal forestry operations, large contractor invoices, and significant cash outflows during peak logging periods, this lack of visibility made forecasting and planning more difficult.

The manual nature of the process also created administrative strain. AP staff spent significant time on repetitive tasks such as entering invoice data, tracking down documents, following up on approvals, and responding to internal requests for invoice status. As the forest industry continued to face workforce pressures, maintaining consistent AP coverage across multiple locations became more challenging.

At the same time, procurement processes varied across the organization. Purchase orders and purchase quotes were not always used consistently, reflecting the fast-moving and operationally diverse nature of the business. While this flexibility helped teams respond quickly to urgent needs, such as emergency parts for mill operations, it also created an opportunity to introduce more standardized controls, clearer approval paths, and stronger audit trails.

Sinclar also recognized the growing importance of fraud prevention. Like many organizations, the company was navigating increasingly sophisticated invoice fraud and phishing attempts, especially those targeting vendor banking information. With high-value invoices flowing through multiple locations and workflows, Sinclar needed a more centralized and controlled process to help protect the business.

To support its next stage of growth, Sinclar needed an AP automation solution that could work within Business Central, support multiple entities and workflows, improve visibility across the organization, and give the finance team stronger tools for control, compliance, and cash management.

The Solution:
Truvio AP Automation gave Sinclar a flexible, AI-powered way to automate invoice processing directly inside Business Central.

After evaluating AP automation solutions, Sinclar chose Truvio because it offered a different approach from traditional systems that required extensive consulting, detailed runbooks, and vendor-by-vendor configuration before invoices could be processed.

With Truvio, Sinclar’s AP team could begin processing invoices quickly while training the system as they worked. The team created playbooks, interacted directly with the AI, and taught the solution how to read new invoice formats, route approvals, and apply coding rules. This gave the AP team ownership of the system and helped drive strong adoption from the start.

“We got immediate high buy-in from our AP staff because we brought them in. They’re the ones creating the playbooks. They’re the ones interacting with the solution. They had control.” - Grant Fast, Business Improvement Manager, Sinclar Group Forest Products

Truvio also helped Sinclar standardize purchasing and approval processes across the organization. Purchase Quotes are now created for the majority of purchases, and approvals for Purchase Quotes and Purchase Orders are completed electronically through Truvio on desktop and mobile devices.

For urgent operational needs, such as emergency parts for a mill breakdown, Truvio still provides flexibility by routing invoices for after-the-fact approval. This helped Sinclar balance stronger controls with the realities of fast-moving forestry and manufacturing operations.

The Result:
Sinclar centralized AP across six entities, achieved approximately 70% touchless invoice processing, and eliminated paper-based invoice filing.

With Truvio, Sinclar now processes the majority of invoices through an automated workflow, from capture and matching through entry into the payment queue. Approximately 70% of invoices flow through the system without human intervention, supported by Truvio Coding Rules, Auto Coding Suggestions, and three-way matching.

By automating routine invoice processing, Sinclar’s AP team now spends less time on manual data entry and more time on higher-value work such as fraud detection, cash forecasting, vendor management, and financial oversight. As roles changed through natural transitions, Sinclar was able to consolidate invoice handling across all six entities into a single AP team without needing to backfill positions.

All invoices are now stored digitally within Business Central through Truvio. Team members can access invoice documents based on permissions, eliminating the need for physical filing cabinets, manual scanning, and site-by-site document retrieval.

“What’s been most impactful about the Truvio implementation is how it supports both our people and our processes by reducing administrative effort while improving accuracy and transparency across our operations.” - Grant Fast, Business Improvement Manager, Sinclar Group Forest Products

Truvio has also improved Sinclar’s contract management and cash forecasting. Forestry contracts covering silviculture, reforestation, road management, and other long-term obligations can now be set up in Business Central with predefined cost codes, approvals, and budgets. As contractor invoices arrive, they are matched against the appropriate contract, giving management better visibility into planned spend and budget performance.

The system also supports Sinclar’s diverse workflows across forestry, lumber manufacturing, and Winton Homes, including project-based accounting through Business Central’s Jobs functionality.

Truvio has strengthened Sinclar’s control environment as well. With invoices flowing through a centralized workflow, vendor banking changes are subject to stricter verification, approval trails are easier to follow, and auditors can retrieve documents remotely through Truvio’s Document Search module.

Overall, Truvio AP Automation has helped Sinclar transform AP from a decentralized, paper-heavy process into a centralized, scalable, and intelligent finance function inside Business Central. The company continues to use Truvio’s audit logs, KPIs, Power BI reporting, and quarterly reviews to identify new opportunities for continuous improvement.