Plymouth College reaps benefit of document management

Released 26/05/2011

College is achieving significant return on investment from implementing Version One solution

One of the largest further education colleges in the UK, City College Plymouth, is achieving significant annual cost savings as a result of implementing Version One's document management and imaging systems.

These systems, which are tightly integrated into the College's Microsoft Dynamics GP accounting system, have also improved invoice processing efficiency and freed-up document storage space.

Andrew Fiderkiewicz, head of finance at City College Plymouth, says: "Historically our processes for handling and managing documents were manually intensive and inefficient. For instance, when we received supplier invoices, they were date stamped, batched and then manually entered into the accounting system.

"Invoices that did not match the original orders were physically sent to the relevant departments for their approval. Once the invoices were paid, they would be sorted and filed away in alphabetical order which was a tortuous, time-consuming process and also took up a significant amount of storage space."

Space saver

As the College is embarking on a rebuilding programme, storage space will be at a premium, so as well as improving efficiency, Version One's document management system has already freed-up vital document storage space.

Purchase invoices are now scanned-in using a Kodak scanner and the invoice information is automatically captured using optical character recognition (OCR) technology and verified against the Microsoft Dynamics GP finance system. The imaged invoices are then automatically stored in the electronic archive and linked with all corresponding documents to assist invoice matching. These, and other documents, are quickly and easily retrievable by drilling down through Microsoft Dynamics GP or by using Version One's web browser.

Key benefits

Fiderkiewicz comments: "We have gained three key benefits as a result of implementing Version One's software. Invoices can no longer get lost and management information is automatically produced from Version One's system highlighting where invoices are and how long they have been awaiting approval. In addition, creditor payments have also been speeded up reducing time consuming external queries.

"By streamlining our financial processes, we have been able to improve customer service to our creditors as well as making internal savings of both time and space. Version One's software has also been rolled out to include internal processes such as the payment of staff travel and subsistence claims thus releasing further savings and we intend to consider other adaptations in the future," he adds.

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