COUNCIL chiefs are trying to speed up the process of paying for their supplies.

An electronic invoicing system to speed up payments to suppliers is being adopted across North Yorkshire.

Each year, the county council buys a range of goods and services from suppliers all over the country and everything from paper clips to computer software is paid for through a paper trail.

Councillor Carl Les, executive member for corporate services, said: "At present, we pay 92 per cent of suppliers within 30 days. The Government target is 100 per cent. We realised we could not hit that target if we were trapped by paper-based processes.

"We had reached a plateau in terms of improving our efficiency due to the inherent inefficiencies of manual, paper-based processing."

In future, a company called Open Business Exchange will work on behalf of the authority to collect electronic invoices from major suppliers.

The council will then automatically e-mail the incoming electronic invoices to the departmental buyer for approval.

John Burrows, head of the central finance business unit, said: "This improved system will enable us to make better decisions about purchasing. Once we have electronic information about spending, we will be in a stronger position to negotiate better prices.

"We believe the increased management information will reap huge financial rewards. We will be improving the efficiency of our operation, while at the same time suppliers should be happy because the delivery of the invoices is guaranteed and that should lead to prompt payment."