Ullrich Aluminium
Leading Australian aluminum supplier speeds up AP and AR processes, saving staff 80+ hours a week.
The challenge
Manually processing invoices was labour intensive for accounts payable (AP) staff at
Ullrich Aluminium Company. Each of the organisation’s 25 branches would receive supplier
invoices that they would process and send to Ullrich’s head office AP team for final
approval.
However, if AP staff had any queries about an invoice, it required searching through
hundreds of emails sent by the branches that contained invoice images. “When AP had a
payment run to do, they had to open up each email and look for the invoice by line,” said
Shane Coulter, IT Manager at Ullrich. “They had to search through 200 to 300 emails to
find the correct invoice that matched that payment. So, as you can imagine, it was very
time-consuming.”
Everything changed when Ullrich discovered Hyland's OnBase content services platform.
The solution
Ullrich implemented OnBase in 2010 to streamline invoice processing. Because of the value derived from the solution, the company leveraged OnBase into accounts receivable (AR) to further maximise savings.
Using OnBase, AP staff now have immediate access to invoices directly from their ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics NAV. They simply click on the invoice payment line and automatically see an image of the invoice. This speeds up approvals, allowing staff to quickly review the invoice and verify it’s been signed off by the branch manager.
“It’s a really quick and easy process compared with what it used to be,” Coulter said. “It saves us a lot of time. Over the course of a week, it saves us about 80 hours — it adds up pretty quickly.”
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Provides AR with instant access to needed customer information
Prior to OnBase, finding any changes to a customer account — such as a new address or change to credit limits — required searching line by line through a directory for the needed information.
Now, staff scan in any changes on a customer maintenance form into OnBase, which is linked to a customer card. They then click on the customer card to instantly see all of the updates that have taken place over the course of that customer being in the system.
“It helps AR keep track of the customer’s record,” Coulter said. “And like our process in AP, it’s a very good time saver for the staff involved.”
Our AP and AR staff have grown accustomed to using OnBase. That’s what’s saving them time. They love it compared to what we used to do. It makes life a lot easier.
— Shane Coulter, IT Manager, Ullrich Aluminium
The difference
Improves employee satisfaction: “Our AP and AR staff have grown accustomed to using OnBase,” Coulter said. “That’s what’s saving them time. They love it compared to what we used to do. It makes life a lot easier.”
Ensures data accuracy: In AP, staff manually enter invoice data into Dynamics and scan the invoice into OnBase. As a result, OnBase verifies that the data entered matches the values on the scanned invoice.
Requires little system maintenance: “OnBase is actually quite easy to use,” Coulter said. “We absolutely have no problem with it — it just runs. It works really well.”