Powering Procurement Efficiency for Europe’s Fastest-Growing EV Charging Network

Founded in 2021, Electra is accelerating the transition to electric mobility across Europe through a fast-growing network of ultra-rapid charging stations. In just a few years, the company has become a Next40 member and a leader in sustainable transport, active around Europe and partnering with major retail and hospitality brands to make EV charging effortless and accessible.

Already functional accross France and eight other European markets, Electra aims to deploy 15,000 fast-charging points by 2030, creating a seamless, reliable, and sustainable charging experience for drivers — and helping decarbonize mobility at scale.

As its network expanded, Electra faced a new challenge: ensuring every charging station — each representing a major capital investment — remained efficient and profitable. Managing costs across hundreds of infrastructure projects demanded a procurement system as fast and reliable as the charging network itself.

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The Challenge

Behind every Electra charging station lies a complex chain of actions — from six months of commercial negotiations to four to six months of construction and installation. Each station represents a substantial CAPEX investment of around €500,000, making visibility and control over spending essential for the company’s financial health and investor confidence.

Until the end of 2023, however, Electra’s accounting tools lacked automation and integration. Procurement processes were fragmented, and cost reconciliation per station required extensive manual effort. This slowed reporting and limited profitability insights across projects.

Electra had initially implemented SAP S/4HANA to centralize financial operations, but the ERP’s procurement workflows were complex for operational teams. Adoption risked stalling, and productivity could suffer. As Etienne de Valbray, VP Operational Strategy, explained:

“SAP is an excellent tool and a powerful core ERP engine, but we needed something more intuitive to manage day-to-day procurement. That’s where Payflows came in — as a user-friendly overlay for our teams.”

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From Fragmented Processes to Unified Procurement

To meet its needs, Electra adopted a hybrid model, combining SAP’s robust financial core with an agile P2P (Procure-to-Pay) layer that streamlined day-to-day operations. After a two-month evaluation of several tools, the team selected Payflows for its simplicity, adaptability, and speed of deployment.

Implementation was fast: a standalone roll-out in three weeks to begin managing purchase requests, orders, and approvals, followed by a two-month SAP integration for real-time synchronization of expense data.

Today, more than 70 Electra employees use the platform daily to manage procurement across projects and geographies. From intake to approvals and invoice management, the process is now unified — with data automatically synchronized to SAP. This automation frees the finance team from repetitive control tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-value work such as exception handling and financial optimization.

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The Impact

With around 80% of Electra’s purchases tied to charging station construction and equipment, efficient procurement has become central to operations. The new process offers end-to-end visibility, faster approval cycles, and clear traceability from purchase to payment.

Teams across the organization — from project managers to finance leaders — now work within a single system, ensuring consistency and transparency without slowing execution.

As Etienne de Valbray reflects:

“Payflows helps us simplify complex procurement workflows and keep up with our growth. It’s given our teams agility, transparency, and confidence in the data they work with every day.”

By blending SAP’s stability with a user-centric P2P layer, Electra has built a scalable foundation for both rapid growth and cost control — essential for a company deploying thousands of high-value assets across Europe.

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Looking Ahead

As Electra continues its expansion, its procurement and finance teams now operate with the agility needed to support a European rollout at scale. With streamlined systems and real-time visibility, the company is not only accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles — it’s setting a new operational standard for sustainable infrastructure growth.

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