HBS Transforms Client’s Business through New Document Management System
Hungate Business Services is proud to say one of its clients, Matt Rasnake, IT director for Gas Field Services Inc., recently paid us a compliment: “Our goal was to go from a 45 file-cabinet room to a room with five cabinets, and thanks to Hungate Business services, we easily succeeded that.”
Cutting down on file storage, printing costs and hours spent hard-copy filing can be a huge challenge for many companies. But it’s possible to turn things around with the right digital document-management system.
In the case of Gas Field Services, it was an easy call. We knew that GlobalSearch® Enterprise Content Management, software developed by Square9 Softworks, would help them put things in perspective. The company is a mid-sized (but growing) construction company that operates in four states. Most of its employees work in the field – without easy access to documents stored in the company’s Rosedale, Virginia, home office. As a result, employee access to information and maintaining order were becoming increasingly difficult.
“We hit a point where we weren’t as efficient with scanning, emailing, pulling files and faxing them to other states,” noted Rasnake. “We needed to organize our data into a central system that everyone, no matter where they were had access to.”
The company approached Hungate for help, and we helped them get Square9’s GlobalSearch and GlobalCapture software up and going.
What is OCR and How It Helped the Company
Beyond cutting down on hard-copy storage, what the construction firm needed most was automated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for streamlined data capture and automatic categorization to keep remote employees organized and connected. OCR is a technology that enables users to convert different types of documents, such as scanned paper documents, PDF files or images captured by a digital camera into editable and searchable data.
In particular, Rasnake noted that OCR helped to streamline business processes, particularly in the accounts payable and accounts receivable departments. It also vastly improved their management and distribution of vehicle maintenance records.
“This is saving us an average five hours a week just on check stubs and two hours a week on filling per diem checks,” he said. “In addition, our mail goes through, gets scanned into an inbox in GlobalSearch and then gets distributed out … It has completely changed our entire business process through and through.”
Besides going from 40 file cabinets down to five, the new system allowed Gas Field to eliminate from 12-15 hours of hard-copy filing per week, reducing overall paper usage by 75 percent.
If your organization wants to implement an electronic document management system to reduce costs, improve service and increase productivity, Hungate will be glad to discuss options with you. Just call us at 276-243-4026 or email our help desk at info@hbsx.com.
Note: Information for this blog is based on a case study prepared and published by Square9 Softworks.
