Hours saved
Faster payment readiness
Teaching and admin staff
Canterbury College is a Kindergarten to Year 12 school in Queensland with more than 1,500 students, more than 300 staff and a 37 hectare footprint. Its finance environment also supports an early learning centre, sport and pool operations and a broad mix of purchasing needs across the school.
For Director of Finance Anthony McRae, the opportunity was not simply to make accounts payable faster. The bigger goal was to give budget holders and finance the visibility they needed across the full request to payment workflow, with clearer approval history, better audit evidence and fewer manual checks sitting around the edges of the process.
Before Alii, Canterbury could process invoices and payments, but the visibility around the work was harder to maintain. Once an item had been approved, budget holders did not always have an easy way to see what happened next, what was still waiting or what sat in their history.
That meant routine questions often came back to finance. Budget holders and suppliers could ask where a purchase order or invoice was up to, and the team had to look through email trails, workflow records or payment preparation steps to piece together the answer.
Delegation also created practical friction. Leave cover could require workarounds, and audit detail was not as easy to see as Canterbury wanted. The issue was not only speed. It was transparency, governance and confidence before payment.
Anthony had already seen Alii work in another school environment. When he arrived at Canterbury and saw Alii was being considered, it was clear to him that the school should prioritise a better workflow layer around AP.
Alii sits alongside Canterbury’s finance and budgeting environment, helping connect purchase orders, invoice checks, approvals, audit trails and payment readiness in one clearer workflow. Budget holders can see more of the process. Finance can see where work is sitting. The audit trail stays connected to the transaction.
For Canterbury, that meant Alii was not just another approval screen. It became the practical layer that made the full PO to payment process easier to see, manage and trust.
"It is the whole visibility of the entire process, from the create right through to the payment of the actual invoice itself."
Anthony McRae, Director of Finance, Canterbury College
The biggest change was visibility. Budget holders can now see what has been created, what has been approved, whether an invoice has arrived and where an item sits in the workflow. That matters because the people spending the money are often outside finance, and they need clear information without having to call or email the finance team.
Finance also gained a clearer view across the workflow. The AP team can see what is waiting, what has moved, what has been sent to the supplier and what is ready for the next step. Anthony described this as the system doing the heavy lifting, because the workflow is carrying more of the routing, record keeping and visibility that previously had to be chased manually.
The audit trail is another major shift. Alii logs activity across purchase orders and invoices, shows where items have moved and supports checks such as ABN, BSB and bank account validation before payment. That gives Canterbury stronger evidence and helps flag issues earlier in the process.
"The transparency that it opens for those budget holders, that would be the biggest change."
Anthony McRae, Director of Finance, Canterbury College
The following results are from Alii 2026 usage reporting.
By automating over 1,900 transactions through Alii in 2026, Canterbury is estimated to have saved more than 360 hours, equal to more than 9 weeks of admin time.
Payment run readiness moved from mid-afternoon to before the school day begins, with Friday payment runs shifting from around 2pm readiness to 8:30am readiness.
Internal payment deadlines moved from close of business Wednesday to close of business Thursday, giving staff an extra day while still supporting Friday payment readiness.
Alii adds an extra layer of financial security by flagging potential payment risks before money leaves the school.
Duplicate invoice detection helped prevent duplicate payments on almost 31 percent of invoices processed, reducing risk and manual checking.
Digital PO approvals reduced paperwork and helped approvals move through the workflow with clearer visibility.
Alii reporting estimates Canterbury will reclaim more than 21 full school weeks of admin capacity through the platform in 2026.
Canterbury’s workflow story is strongest when the full journey is shown together: My Queue, Budget Dashboard, Invoice Checks and Audit Trail.
My Queue gives users a clear view of what needs action.
The Budget Dashboard gives budget holders better access to where things sit. Invoice Checks help validate supplier, bank and invoice details before payment.
The Audit Trail keeps the evidence connected to the transaction, so finance can see what happened without rebuilding the story later.
That is where the value moves beyond automation. Alii helps Canterbury run the payment process faster, but it also gives the school a clearer record, stronger controls and better visibility for the people who need to make spending decisions.
Canterbury’s story is useful for schools that want AP automation to support more than finance team efficiency. It shows the value of giving budget holders better visibility, giving finance a clearer workflow and bringing checks, audit trails and payment readiness into one process.
It also shows why implementation should be judged by the practical work it improves. Anthony’s view is that the procure to pay process is the same in principle across schools: a quote, a purchase order, an approval and a payment. The difference is whether the system around that process helps people see what is happening and act with confidence.
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