Dalkia

Dalkia Facilities Management Company, service an all Ireland client list. Dalkia Account Managers, located on site, generate over 1,000 invoices per week, which are processed at Dalkia’s Head Office in Swords. Prior to this solution Account Managers had to travel to Dalkia once per week in order to examine and check invoices.

The associated costs with this activity were so high that Douglas Pye, Central Services Director, undertook a project to streamline invoice processing and reduce the costs associated with the administration of same.

Dalkia decided to offer Administration staff and Account Managers online access to view and process supplier invoices as required.

Project Objectives:

1. Reduce administration handling, processing and filing of supplier invoices
2. Reduce the time Account Manager spend processing invoices
3. Cut down the time line to Supplier Payment and Client Billing, which was running up to 6-weeks
4. To have an on-line solution that provides instant retrieval of invoices and related documents
5. Reduce the cost of internal photocopying
6. Eliminate exposure to document loss/destruction
7. Reduce storage space as Dalkia was storing 6-years of invoices
8. Decrease staff time on invoice processing
   

Solution

Laserfiche Document Management Software: Installation of:-

• Laserfiche United for MS SQL Server (database).
• Laserfiche Client (Client application for HQ Accounts Administration Staff).
• Laserfiche QuickFields (Engine to automatically process scanned invoices).
• Laserfiche Integrators Toolkit.

Using a RICOH 2432 Multi-Function high-speed colour laser printer/photocopier/scanner supplied by Digicom, the Laserfiche solution allows for all types of invoices to be scanned and processed. During processing, a number of fields are automatically indexed and OCR’d (Optical Character Recognition), i.e. all the text is digitally recorded on an invoice. Therefore, any text within an invoice can be used for search and retrieval purposes.

Online Purchase Order Solution:

The Laserfiche Integrators Toolkit enabled the full integration of the Laserfiche software with Dalkia’s on-line Sun Accounts solution. Therefore, any staff member from any location can enter a PO number and view a scanned image of the original invoice simultaneously.

Objectives & Benefits Achieved:

• A remote Web based PO set-up capability to view all PO’s & Invoices
  Benefit - Access from any location
• Remote Authorisation of Invoice Payment
  Benefit - Access from any location
• Account Managers no longer need to Travel to HQ
  Benefits - Reduction in weekly travel costs and a reduction in lost time and cost spent travelling
• Invoices can be instantly retrieved
  Benefit - Eliminates time and associated costs spent manually searching for invoices
• Dalkia now has an electronic backup of all hard copy invoices
  Benefit - No longer exposed to invoices being permanently lost/destroyed
• No longer the need to photocopy invoices
  Benefit - Reduced photocopying and printer costs
• No need to keep hardcopy invoices after two years
  Benefit - Free up storage space previously taken up by 4-years of invoices
• Earlier billing of clients & payment to suppliers
  Benefit - Improved customer service
• More effective and efficient internal administration
  Benefit - Improved economies of scale and productivity