It’s amazing how quickly a business process gets bogged down when you have to search for paper documents. It doesn’t matter if you are a Fortune 500 company, a local school or a small manufacturing company.
A common trouble spot is the purchasing process. Let’s start with receiving a purchase order (PO) from a customer. That might come in as a fax, through the mail or maybe as an email attachment. Someone takes the paper PO and generates a sales order. That creates a shipping document that goes to the warehouse.
Products are packaged and sent through a carrier with a list of what’s shipped. After the product shipped, you receive a proof of delivery from FedEx, UPS or whatever shipping company you use. Now you create an invoice and send that to the customer. Each printed document is collated and goes into a customer file. There should only be one version of each document, but there might be multiple copies in files throughout the company.
The customer calls with a question about their shipment. The sales rep is contacted, but he doesn’t have the shipping list. He calls accounting, but they didn’t get the final list from shipping. He calls shipping, but everyone is busy with a big order. While he’s tracking down the information, the customer gets frustrated.
A better approach is to scan the paper documents into a document management system so everyone can access the same information quickly. When the PO comes in, the person receiving it walks up to an MFP (multi-function printer) and scans it into a customer folder. A notification generates a sales order. A shipping document is printed and sent to the warehouse. The order is packed and a shipping list printed. Everything is scanned into the customer folder, including the proof of delivery when it arrives.
When the customer calls, the sale rep opens a browser, types in the customer name and sees all the documents in one place. He answers the customer’s question quickly and she is happy.
Scanning documents eliminates errors and saves time, which translates into a satisfied customer. That’s something we all need.
Let MCC help your organization’s run smoother and become more organized. Contact us today for a consult on which MFP is the right solution for you.