Scanning & Document Management Streamlines Financial and DOT Records Management Systems
Love Bottling, a thriving soft drink, water and coffee products distributor serving Eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas, knows business success generates additional paperwork. One of the paperwork challenges Love Bottling faces is keeping up with the hundreds of invoices/bills of lading the company processes a day.
“With $38 million in sales a year, we process 500 or more invoices a day,” says company controller Cindy Smith. “In our business, invoices and bills of lading are synonymous. Whenever a customer calls with a question about a delivery, we need to locate a copy of their invoice immediately.”
Prior to implementing a document scanning/electronic document management system, Love Bottling filed printed copies of invoices. Staff had to thumb through hardcopy files to find an invoice. They then made a photocopy of the paperwork and either mailed or faxed a copy to their customer.
“It could take several minutes to locate a file,” Smith said. “In some instances, it could take much longer if the original document had been misfiled.”
Another factor driving Love Bottling toward scanning and electronic document management was physical storage.
“We are required to save all invoices for seven years for financial audits and tax reporting purposes,” Smith said. “We had quite a few file cabinets in our Muskogee office as well as records stored offsite.”
In 2005, Love Bottling started transitioning from an all paper records system to an electronic records management system that incorporated the following:
- Upon receipt, invoices are proofed against each day’s delivery route records
- Paper records are then imaged using Digitech PaperFlow scanning and indexing software
- Each scanned file is tagged with identifiers (also known as index fields) so invoices can be easily retrieved in the future
- In this indexing step, Love staff manually index only one field for each scanned file – a five-digit invoice number
- An automated match and merge process is then run pulling data from Love’s accounting system to auto-populate additional data fields such as payee, payee amount, paid date, etc.
- Electronic documents are then stored in a secure, central repository called PaperVision Enterprise (PVE).
- Using easy-to-administer user access settings in the PVE software, Love controls who can add or modify documents in their system, as well as who can retrieve and view saved documents
“This less paper-intensive system is a much more efficient way to archive our financial records,” Smith says. “It also improves customer service, by empowering our employees with information to answer customer inquiries without having to leave their desks to search paper files.”
Seeing the efficiencies gained in the Accounting department, Love’s Human Resources department decided to adopt the same PaperFlow and PaperVision Enterprise software tools to address their records management challenge. Specifically, the HR department is responsible for archiving all delivery driver records for 90 days under rules set forth by both the U.S. and Oklahoma Departments of Transportation (DOT).
“Whenever the DOT conducts a surprise audit, we have to be able to produce drivers’ records,” Smith said. “Failure to do so results in potential fines for our company.”
“Managing drivers’ records electronically and using the automated records retention/records destruction features in PVE has improved our record archiving system dramatically. It is much easier now to systematically save all the drivers’ records we need and automatically delete records as soon as they become obsolete.”