We know how important the mailroom is to the Accounts Payable team’s success. Every invoice or purchase order sent your way is directly linked to your organization’s operational and financial success. Receiving documents from different vendors, different office branches, and all in different formats (physical mail, courier, FTP, email, fax, or EDI) can lead to a messy ‘mailroom’ which results in longer processes and incomplete document retention. These documents are important records, and they deserve high quality, cutting edge technology to ensure that they are processed, scanned, and stored correctly.
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Other resources you might find helpful:
- Blog: Digital Transformation: It’s More Than Just Technology
- Blog: Digital Mailroom: The Latest and Greatest in Document Intake
A digital mailroom component at the front end of an AP automation solution can increase the value you receive from all those dollars you invested in an ERP system. Don’t fall into the trap of believing you have to use your ERP to cover each aspect of AP automation – third-party workflow components like a digital mailroom provide enormous benefits.
“ERP’s are tremendous business tools and are incredibly valuable to large organizations, but sometimes it makes sense to add specialized third-party capabilities to achieve the best result,” said Brandon Loeschner, National Practice Leader at RubinBrown. “Adding a digital mailroom component to the front end of your AP automation process enhances your ERP investment because it can significantly reduce overhead costs and improve process efficiencies.”
The digital mailroom component is essential. But your company needs a partner that offers a highly automated, complete digital mailroom that uses Software as a Service (SaaS) OCR. A digital mailroom solution that provides all data electronically and quality reviewed with human validation on the back end and checked for accuracy which is not the case with most commodity scanning-based lockbox solutions today. This allows for 99%+ clean data. In addition, a SaaS OCR digital mailroom solution will accept documents of any type, in any format, via mail, courier, FTP, remote capture, or EDI.
What can a digital mailroom provide? If you select the right digital mailroom partner, you can expect:
Post Office Box Receipt and Management
With a centralized document capture facility, documents may be sent directly by vendors to a single, efficient post office box. This mail will then be opened, sorted, and scanned at the same facility.
Email Receipt
Invoices and other documents may be emailed directly to the digital mailroom provider and imported into the workflow process as images.
Electronic Invoice Receipt
EDI documents may be sent to the digital mailroom for import and archival.
Remote Capture
Documents can be scanned and indexed directly into the workflow process at any site in the world.
Fax Receipt
Invoices and other documents may be received, on your behalf, as faxes and imported into the workflow process as images.
The DataServ Digital Mailroom offers all of the above, while also adding the bonus features of:
- 24-hour processing
- PO box receipt and management, fax, email, EDI receipt and remote capture
- Redundant high-speed, high-quality scanners
- SaaS OCR
- Flexible staffing options
- Paper recycling to meet corporate Green initiatives
When we talk about digital transformation in P2P processes, our attention is always on the four areas most affected by the change: people, processes, technology, and data. Digital Mailroom is a perfect example of how all four of those areas can come together to provide major benefits for your organization, while following our first and foremost rule: Successful digital transformation comes from focusing on how a process can benefit from a technology, rather than forcing a technology to fit a process.
