Ontario Record Management: Don't Wait For Year End

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Ontario Record Management Dont Wait For
Year-EndBy Kevin DArcyVice President of
Sales Marketing
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Peace of Mind Not Pieces of Paper

• For many of you who are familiar with Ontario
  record management this presentation may seem
  counter-intuitive to some document management
  solution offerings, and Im sure if any document
  management companys conversion services staff
  read this I would get an ear-full. But at the end
  of the day an Ontario record management companys
  goal is to provide peace of mind, not pieces of
  paper, in other words, theyre problem solvers
  no matter what the solution may be.
• It happens around this time every year
  companies fiscal year-ends are here and they
  look back at the cabinets and boxes of accounts
  payable and account receivable documents they
  have collected over the year and they want to
  scan them. Fantastic! I always applaud those
  organizations who want to manage their
  information electronically That is if there is a
  business case for it. 

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Record Management Sales Call

• A typical sales call for this applications goes
  like this
• Ontario record management solution provider So
  tell me about the challenges youre facing
  managing these documents in paper form
• Client Well were running out of room
• Ontario record management solution provider
  Aside from real estate, what other challenges
  are you facing? Do retrievals take too long? Are
  documents going missing? Are vendors not getting
  paid on time? Are clients stretching out their
  terms?
• Client No not really. Its just space. By the
  time the documents get to these cabinets, their
  inactive (read paid, received, processed,
  etc.).

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Business Cases For Record Management

• Here in lies the problem, and would explain why
  the majority of these clients nearly fall out of
  their chairs when they find out scanning 100
  boxes is going to cost more then a 100.00
  Theres no business case, there is no challenge
  or pain, and storage space will always be less
  expensive then scanning.
• That being said, accounting departments have one
  of the strongest business cases for Ontario
  record management, the problem is most of them
  are looking to implement the solution at the
  wrong phase. AP and AR documents are some of the
  most actively handled in a company. They are
  passed between departments, they require
  verification, processing, multiple approvals,
  line item matching, follow ups, signatures, etc.
  etc. all of these steps are said and done by the
  time the files reach the cabinet. At this point
  there is nothing left to automate, there is
  virtually no time-savings and there is no room
  for process improvement.

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Implementing Record Management

• If we look at interjecting Ontario record
  management at the beginning of cycle this
  business case is clear for most organizations.
  For less than the cost of most back-file
  conversion, organizations can implement and
  electronic document management solution which
  would allow for
• Electronic document import of AR documents (no
  more paper)
• Automatic emailing of invoices, POs, etc.
• Automated processing and indexing of both
  structured (AR Invoices) and unstructured (AP
  Invoices)
• Matching if scanned documents to existing files
  within the system (i.e. singed packing slips
  automatically being matched up with
  the corresponding order documents)
• Electronic workflows for AP approval processing
  and much more.

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Implementing Record Management

• Dont get me wrong, Ontario record management
  companies love to scan back-file collections and
  sometimes there is a very clear cut business case
  to do so but interjecting Ontario record
  management at the beginning of the accounting
  process makes it simpler, faster and more
  customer service focused.
• Contact your local record management company for
  more information about how their services can
  benefit your business.

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About the Author

• Kevin D'Arcy is VP of Sales and Marketing for
  MES Hybrid Document Systems, Ontario's leading
  document scanning and document management
  supplier. For more information about microfilm
  scanners, visit http//www.mesltd.ca/.