„The expectations to transform into a digital company have been met. With the V-Desk system, we said a final goodbye to paper-based document workflows, and this has positively influenced the efficiency of processes.”
Chief Accountant, Elplast+ sp. z o.o., Renata Rosenbeiger
Implementation objective: To streamline and increase the efficiency of cost document workflow processes, digitalisation and automation of contract workflows, electronic document archives
Solution: document workflow system integrated with Accounts Payable
Industry: manufacturing and processing of plastic products
ELPLAST+ Sp. z o.o.
is a Polish brand, based in Jastrzębie-Zdrój. The company, a family business, has been present on both the Polish and foreign markets since 1999. As a manufacturer and a company that deals with processing plastic products, mainly polyethylene and polypropylene, it caters for the needs of many sectors of the economy and industry, developing and improving its offering. It offers products ranging from pipes, wells and large-scale components to floating jetties, harbours and jet ski slips. There is more to its offer than typical productions, opening up to niche, non-standard orders specifically for customer requirements. All made possible using the company’s own machinery, which consists of 12 production lines for extrusion and rotoforming.
The company’s workflow processes are carried out on paper or electronically without system support.
It was noted that the administrative and financial areas of the company are labour intensive and too much time is spent on them.
Invoices and contracts arrive by post or email, both from contractors and employees for business trips or the purchase of goods. Subsequently, the description is carried out through the various channels available, either by paper or e-mail. This leads to dissatisfaction among employees and the company. These are mainly due to the lack of a single systemic view of the processes.
Moreover, with the current mechanisms, it is not possible to analyse the data in terms of document processing and from the documents at the process. Only after a document was posted did it appear in the ERP system, giving only a partial picture.
Invoice workflow – main challenges :
lack of information about the financial document pending process of approval, which contributes to incomplete reporting of results, or difficulties in generating analyses,
lack of effective control and management of document circulation times,
unnecessary repeated steps of document annotation by personnel and then by accounting in the form of document entries in the ERP system,
no online system access to the electronic image of the invoice
Contracts workflow- main challenges:
the lack of information on the contract document circulating at company level, which causes difficulties in reliable reporting of results,
extensive waiting time for acceptance and contract assesment,
lack of effective control over time of a document workflow
no possibility of effectively reducing time of document circulation.
Introduced solution
Above all, there was a desire to digitalise the company, with a particular focus on administrative and financial areas.
We began our collaboration on the solution with meetings during which the current situation in the company was analysed. Thanks to this approach to the project, the common expectations and goals we were aiming for were clarified by digitalising selected areas:
„ Primesoft Poland’s team of development and implementation professionals proved themselves, during the project as highly qualified specialists with extensive business and technical knowledge. The results of the cooperation are beneficial for us and demonstrate a professional approach to business digitisation.”
Member of the Board, Chief Financial Officer in Elplast+, Piotr Kudela
Solutions
Solutions applied:
V-Desk system in partial integration with ERP.
Modules:
invoice workflow
contracts workflow
Benefits resulting from the implementation of the System
With the introduction of the V-Desk System, the disadvantages mentioned earlier were successfully overcome:
eliminating handwritten notes on paper documents,
no document lost in the company during processing,,
reducing the time needed to process cost invoices and the possibility to control their flow, bottleneck analysis,,
budgeting that takes into account all documents that have been received by the company,
simplifying and improving the quality of the document annotations, defining invoice annotations templates using dictionaries,
providing users with an interface that allows remote access to documents, their acceptance and annotation without the need for physical possession of the document (e.g. acceptance of invoices by people who are currently outside the company).
More advantages
Next to these benefits, the implementation of the V-Desk system has brought additional gains not directly related to the identified causes of dissatisfaction, but important for the company. The electronic archive will result in:
increased control over document access (the paper document will be available only at the registration desk and in accounting, where it will be archived); it will not be possible for unauthorised employees, cleaning staff, security staff, etc. to “accidentally” see the document on the desk.
a full record of document views (who, when, from which desktop), the possibility of report generation, tracking ‘dead traffic’, i.e. unjustified viewing of documents by employees. This translates into increased company information security;
closure of local archives (local copies of documents kept by staff ‘just in case’). Such archives are generally unevaluated and poorly secured;
costs reduction spent on copying documents for the local archives described above;
providing staff with quicker access to the document they need (at the moment, searching the local archive or involving accounting to request a copy and make it available) will result in more efficient use of working time.
The planned benefit of the project will be that the company receives an electronic archive and document workflow system, V-Desk, which can be used to optimization of further processes within the company.
V-Desk in Elplast +
Invoice workflow
In the invoice workflow process itself, the proposed workflow system ensures that expenses are properly accepted and allocated by means of system-defined mechanisms of control. By introducing a process management tool, we have first and foremost gained control over the course of processes, impacting the saving of time and costs.
The solution features a built-in system of e-mail notifications of assigned tasks, which allows the user to react quickly.
Raports
The added value of the V-Desk System is the option to create extensive reports based on the data available within the individual registers. Each document is available in an electronic version and information about it can be quickly searched within the functionality of the electronic archive. The information gathered in the system is accessible and easy to search according to the applicable authority structure.
OCR mechanism
The OCR mechanism applied at the registration stage in the system. A solution based on intelligent data reading technology has been adopted for the invoice workflow process, automating manual processes and eliminating the circulation of paper versions of documents. Thanks to this solution, there is no need to duplicate documents or forward them by e-mail.
Contracts workflow
The drafting of the contract from scratch all the way to its modification and final approval is carried out in the system, where access to tasks is based on the permissions granted to users. Documents are in one place, there is no need to print them out or forward them by e-mail, what entails lack of security.
