Upholstery Supplier Amplifies Paperless Initiatives with Document Capture Automation
Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, The Miami Corporation is a supplier of upholstery fabric, outdoor fabric and upholstery supplies suitable for automotive, marine, awning, industrial, healthcare, and hospitality applications. Founded in 1923, The Miami Corporation has grown to provide over 25,000 products to customers across the United States. With distribution centers in Dallas, TX and Jacksonville, FL, The Miami Corporation prides itself on unparalleled customer service and unwavering integrity.
Working directly with hundreds of vendors, the Accounting team at The Miami Corporation processes thousands of invoices weekly, with over 90% sent electronically in large multi-page files. Although The Miami Corporation was already operating as a paperless organization, having to manually extract the individual invoice pages from each digital file was a very time consuming and tedious process. In addition, when invoices were sent via the postal service, staff members had to scan and properly name and organize each invoice digitally. They knew it was time to look for a cost-effective document scanning software that could facilitate the naming and filing of every invoice received.
After an extensive software review that spanned several months, enterprise content management developer, Square 9 Softworks, best met The Miami Corporation’s capture needs, while remaining at a cost the company could afford. They immediately implemented Square 9’s GlobalCapture document capture automation solution.
Doing so, has allowed The Miami Corporation to streamline invoice processing with increased data accuracy – all while saving their Accounts Payable Specialist 16 hours per week! With Square 9’s solutions, The Miami Corporation simply drops their files into a hot folder, which automatically separates pages into named documents based on the criteria of their document templates. With over 70 templates in their capture system, the software has been a huge time saver by recognizing incoming files and separating them into the appropriate archives for processing. Then each document is automatically named as the system extracts key data for index fields to keep files organized and staff members informed of critical payment information.
With a high volume of incoming documents, GlobalCapture saves valuable time as Accounting staff can now spend much less time handling electronic documents and more time actually processing vouchers. Having integrated unique capture workflows into their existing process has increased The Miami Corporation’s Accounts Payable productivity by 40%.
What’s next for The Miami Corporation? The company is currently planning to expand their use of Square 9’s solutions to help process expense related documents, including the direct importing of voucher information into their accounting software for increased visibility and more accurate data keeping.
To learn more about The Miami Corporation, please visit www.miamicorp.com.
Interview: Michael Lindemuth, Controller, The Miami Corporation
Q. What criteria did you have in mind when searching for a Document Capture solution?
Q. How is your company using Square 9’s solutions?
Lindemuth: So far we use GlobalCapture exclusively in Accounting for our Accounts Payable process. Our high volume inventory includes electronic and scanned paper invoices, which are now dropped into a folder, separated, and named based on our own criteria. This saves our AP specialist valuable time as she can now spend much less time handling electronic documents and more time actually processing vouchers, keeping our AP up to date and smoothing out the volume spikes. The solutions have saved our AP specialist easily 12 – 16 hours per week.
Q. How have your processes changed since implementing Square 9’s solutions?
Lindemuth: Our entire Accounts Payable process is now much more efficient and we are able to utilize our Accounts Payable Specialist in other areas where she previously could not get involved, such as reviewing and correcting receiving errors within days instead of weeks. We were already predominantly paperless, but the software allows us to file and maintain documents more efficiently. Having integrated the software into our existing process has increased our Accounts Payable Specialist’s productivity 30% – 40%. As we see our business growing, the software definitely allows us to process more documents efficiently and makes considering hiring another AP person unnecessary.
Q. Would you recommend Square 9’s solutions and why?
Lindemuth: I would absolutely recommend Square 9. Their software performs as promised and is very easy to use. Capture workflow set-up and template creation may take some time on the front end, but in the end it ultimately make us much more efficient. While currently we only use the software for inventory invoices, we are planning to expand this to expense related invoices. We also have plans to allow for direct import of voucher information into our accounting software.
