Eating Soup With a Fork by Catherine Murphy

Electronic document management (EDM) or ‘paperless office’ technology is fast becoming the ‘must have’ ERP component. A document management system that does not tightly integrate into your organization’s ERP system is like eating soup with a fork – time-consuming and ultimately pointless!

Integration Is Key - Competition between ERP providers is fiercer than it’s ever been, making it increasingly difficult for businesses to decide which ERP system to purchase. A key question ERP buyers need to consider when comparing one system over another is: Does it have integrated document management? If the answer is ‘yes’, does the document management functionality meet all business needs? Document management systems vary considerably in what they can do – some are very basic scanning systems whereas others provide desktop design and electronic delivery, authorization, storage and retrieval of documents.

Long gone are the days when companies were satisfied with basic stand-alone document management systems. It is now imperative that users can electronically create, deliver, store, access and authorize business documents (invoices, statements etc.) directly from their core ERP system. The better document management systems on the market have advanced functionality including automated data capture technology and multiple document delivery options.

Key benefits are cited below.

• Cost savings

Integrated electronic form design/output management software eliminates the need for costly pre-printed stationery as all business documents, like invoices, are created from the desktop, significantly reducing stationery costs.

Organizations that combine electronic form design software with electronic delivery software, such as automated fax, remove the need to print out documents at all!  Documents are delivered to customers directly from the ERP system, either as an image of the paper document or as a PDF file.

Data capture technology also reduces manual data entry effort and labor costs.

• More efficient procure-to-pay processes

For instance, with EDM systems in place, the minute a purchase invoice arrives into an organization, it is scanned in and ‘imaged’. With a barcode capture system, a barcode is placed on each incoming document so that when it is scanned-in, the document is automatically linked to the appropriate record in the ERP system.

Once in the archive, authorized users can view the invoice across the organization, either by drilling down through the ERP system or by searching over the web, enabling any queries to be resolved quickly.

As soon as the document is scanned-in, it is automatically emailed to the appropriate people for authorization, eliminating the inefficient use of internal ‘snail mail’ for authorizations. When all approvals are done electronically, the administrator can easily track individual documents so that they can never go ‘missing’.

• Improved cash flow

Electronically delivered invoices and statements arrive at the customer far quicker than if they were posted out.   In fact, whilst a customer is on the telephone claiming to have not received an invoice, it can be resent by e-mail so that it is in the customer’s inbox within seconds.

• Enhanced customer service

Integrated form design software produces clear, high-quality invoices, statements, etc. Their format can be automatically varied according to the customer, the sales division or the country the documents are being sent to.

Being able to have a document in a customer’s e-mail inbox or on their fax machine within minutes rather than making them wait for a posted document also dramatically improves customer service.

• Redeployment of staff

Staff time spent on the manual filing, retrieval, printing, enveloping and posting of documents can be redeployed to jobs that add value and provide greater job satisfaction. Data capture technology that significantly reduces the manual entry of data also enables data input clerks to be refocused.

• Secure document storage

Once stored in the archive, document images cannot be altered or destroyed in any way, ensuring regulatory compliance and secure document storage, and a comprehensive audit trail.

Is EDM the right solution for your business?  Or, to put it another way, wouldn’t you rather eat your soup with a spoon?

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Six IT 'Facts' - Busted! by Wayne Rash 
 
There are some things that are presented and accepted as fact in IT but that have no connection to reality. Here are some of these IT "facts."

1.  IT 'Fact':  Rules exist for a reason. IT Reality:  The rules of IT are really just laws created by a guy named Murphy. 

2.  IT 'Fact': Performing data backups is key to disaster recovery and business continuity. IT Reality: You spend thousands of dollars backing up the information critical to your business, and you store those backups in a safe location.  But when the day comes that you need to restore that data, you find out that the media is incompatible with your hardware.

 3.  IT 'Fact': There is such a thing as a strong password. IT Reality: No password is secure - ever.  The passwords people can actually remember don't meet standards, and the passwords that meet standards will be written on Post-it notes and stuck to monitors. 

4.  IT 'Fact': Capacity planning is possible. IT Reality:  Storage follows both Parkinson's Law and Murphy's Law.  This means that all information will expand to exceed whatever capacity you have, and your storage system will then crash in a way that is certain to be unrecoverable. 

5.  IT 'Fact': Faithful patching will keep your app humming. IT Reality: The latest automatic update will ensure that the once thing you depend on the most - the application that is the very basis of your business and your continued financial success as a company - will fail catastrophically. 

6.  IT 'Fact': Motivation and positive reinforcement make for a happier and healthier work force. IT Reality:  Those impressively photographed motivational posters you've installed in the work areas are popular with the staff because they provide targets for paper clip slingshots.  The motivational posters that the staff actually puts up come from a company called Despair and say things like, "It's always darkest before it goes pitch-black." 
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EIS Team Member Spotlight

Sue Gerber, a member of our New Jersey office sales team, made the trek to Palm Springs, California to visit us and see the sights.  Here's a note she sent us after the trip:
 
"This is me hiking in the Indian canyons in Palm Springs.  'Prada' and 'hike' don't mesh well in one sentence.  There I was on the hottest day of the month with my sneakers with no traction, my cashmere scarf and fleece jacket and leather jacket.  I had a nice time anyway!
 
The happy dog in the picture is my buddy, Winston.  He's such a mush.  He saw the newsletter and wanted to show everyone how photogenic he is in case there's a cover shot in his future.  He could be employee of the month!  He does go to work at eIS headquarters and he's the only employee that doesn't get a paycheck."