Empire Merchants is the largest liquor distributor in Upstate New York. Speedy delivery and top-notch customer service are crucial to their success. But processing paper documents was getting in the way.
The Invoice Processing Problem
State law now requires that liquor delivery trucks carry copies of invoices for the products they’re shipping. From there, those invoices need to be signed by the customer and returned to Empire Merchants.
This wasn’t a problem when they had three customer service departments spread across regional warehouses. The delivery drivers simply brought the signed invoices back to the warehouse. But in 2006, they consolidated customer service to one central office.
They were left with two options.
- Pay a $1,000/month courier fee to overnight the invoices to customer service department.
- Find a paperless invoice processing solution.
They chose the latter.
Invoice Processing Made Easy
Today, Webdocs for AP makes invoice processing a breeze for Empire Merchants.
Webdocs wasn’t the only document management system that Empire Merchants considered. But it won them over with its IBM i hook, easy configuration, and low cost of ownership. Plus, Webdocs integrated with their ERP application, Movex (now Lawson M3).
Here’s how it works.
When an invoice comes back to the distribution center, it gets scanned back into the system. There’s no more need to courier paper documents from one location to another. They can be shared electronically in an instant at any Empire Merchants location.
Saving Thousands Each Month
Empire Merchants doesn’t need that $1,000/month courier service anymore. Webdocs takes care of everything for them. And that’s just the beginning.
Customer service is better than ever. Today, when customers call about an order or invoice, a customer service rep can retrieve the information in seconds. There’s no need to put the customer on hold.
Plus, Empire Merchants doesn’t have to worry about things like disaster recovery anymore. Their documents are backed up electronically and ready to weather any storm.
But once you get Webdocs into your environment it’s very eye-popping to realize all that it can do. In our case, we had a single project that justified Webdocs, but then when we started using it we realized that there were 1,001 other things we could do with it. I can see the day when we might get to a paperless office.
Peter Coliukos, Director of Information Technology, Empire Merchants
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