docAlpha Customer Success Story: Precoat Metals

Metal coating manufacturer centralizes and scales AP processes with docAlpha

Read our latest case study to discover how the largest independent metal coil coater in North America leveraged the docAlpha Transformation Platform to help centralize their AP processes to gain visibility, scalability and control over vendor invoices.

While Precoat Metas relied on RJS HelpSystems’ WebDocs to handle digital content like invoices, orders, quotes, etc., and used AS/400 to manage business data, neither system was used to full effect. The company’s AP process was labor-intensive and paper-based, meaning that retrieving and sharing information involved manual effort that led to process bottlenecks and an inability to scale.

Prior to adopting docAlpha to intelligently capture data from emailed invoices, the company maintained AP staff members in separate regional offices, supported by temporary workers to scan and handle of 15 to 20 batches of invoices daily. While many invoices were received electronically, everything was printed and scanned into their WebDocs system, with data entry required for both their document management system and AS/400 ERP.

Automation Opportunities

According to Precoat Metals Accounts Payable Supervisor Pat Collins, the company’s new CFO saw an immediate opportunity to improve AP operations by centralizing and streamlining.

That’s when the company discovered the docAlpha Transformation Platform from Artsyl Technologies. Integrated with RJS HelpSystems Document Management, docAlpha can monitor email inboxes to automatically identify the type of attached document, extract the appropriate transaction data and upload everything into WebDocs.

Once in WebDocs, quotes, invoices and orders can be matched automatically. Exceptions are flagged for manual handling by the AP staff, but the majority of invoices flow through the systems all the way to the AS/400 ERP without any manual intervention required.

“We’re not really touching much paper anymore,” Collins said. “We work the batches out of docAlpha, and then it goes to WebDocs, and then it goes through a match process.”

Scalability, Efficiency and Transparency

As a result, Precoat has been able to re-assign four full time employees to higher-level accounting, finance and analyst roles.

Beyond process efficiency, the new process approach delivers greater process visibility and control.

“Everybody who is in the financial buyer role all have access to see all the invoices,” Collins said.

To learn more about how docAlpha delivered a complete solution for digitizing critical documents and streamlined inventory processes for Precoat Metals, read the full case study

Looking for
Document Capture demo?
Request Demo