Business Process Improvement with ECM - Tailored for Departments, Comprehensive for the Enterprise
When an organisation starts to look into document management, we often see that it’s because one or two departments are drowning in paper. Their paper problems and manual processes are so frustrating, time-consuming and expensive that they just can’t stand it any longer.
That’s exactly what happened at Berner Food and Beverage. The accounts payable (AP) department was running out of storage space, staff was wasting too much time searching for invoices, and sharing documents was slow and cumbersome, especially as the company added locations. Having had enough, they implemented OnBase to eliminate these problems in AP.
The key for Berner’s CIO Troy Grove, though, was to keep in mind that AP wasn’t the only department struggling with paper. He made sure Berner chose a solution that could start in one department, but had the potential to scale across the entire company. After AP, Berner continued expanding OnBase to different departments, including the Accounts Receivable (AR), Quality, Procurement, Maintenance, Warehouse, Sales and Compliance departments.
Bridging the Gap Between Software Systems and Departments
Like Berner, organisations need a document management solution that can be tailored to meet the unique needs of each department, but comprehensive enough to expand across the enterprise.
With a single place for content, departments and locations share information easily. For example, if someone needs to see the invoice that goes with a certain contract and who approved it, they aren’t looking in three different places – which could include file cabinets, a network share, an email inbox, someone’s desk or another software application. Instead, a double-click on the invoice brings up the documents related to it while a quick look at the audit trail with a right-click shows who’s seen it and what they did with it.
Departments can also integrate OnBase to your most important business applications. Many processes, like those in accounts payable or accounts receivable, require staff to see both data and documents before they’re complete. To make decisions, staff often has to refer to the paper copy for the information they need. With OnBase, users can pull up related documents with just a mouse-click – without leaving their familiar application. With data directly connected to documents, users can make smarter, faster decisions.
Speed Processes that Stretch Across Departments
One of the biggest slowdowns in a paper world is routing documents to others for review, approval or action. Often accomplished through sending documents back forth via interoffice mail, email, fax or snail mail, these documents are easily forgotten or lost all together.
The State of South Carolina, for example, was no stranger to manual process. When invoices were received at an agency, employees would copy them, batch them into vouchers and courier them to the Comptroller General’s office—at the state capital in Columbia—for approval. The State Treasurer would cut the check and send everything back to the agencies for filing. Discrepancies could take days to resolve while waiting for the paperwork.
After implementing OnBase Workflow and integrating it with the state’s SAP ERP, the process for invoice approval is much quicker. “Now, that whole paper flow has been completely eliminated with electronic workflows. The paper is imaged at the beginning of the process and is available right from SAP,” says Glenn Vose, Information Technology Manager, S.C. Budget and Control Board.
To learn more about how you can start improving your department, take a look through our solutions for: