Document Electronization - "Paperless office" 

The project implemented for our client, VAHOSTAV – SK, aimed to propose a way to simplify and streamline its document management as the internal standards highly elaborated on the one hand, e.g. approval process in the authorization of orders, invoices and contracts, on the other hand caused signifi cant holdbacks in their accounting, fi nancial settlement and displaying the up-to-date asset status. As a solution for this situation, Ness off ered the client a so-called paperless office, which included electronization documents and processes related to them. Not only the number of employees but also the comprehensiveness of its services ranks the client one of the large companies operating in the Slovak Republic. The approval processed, company departments and organization are sectionalized and it was necessary to adopt a complex approach.

 Without papers and electronically

The optimum way out of this situation was the so-called paperless offi ce which includes electronization of document and related processes. For its implementation we chose the solution DMS – Documentum from company EMC. In practice, the paperless offi ce contains each company document scanned and saved in an electronic database which can only be accessed by an authorized employee.

Although Ness aimed to achieve the maximum possible utilization of the existing environment and processes, high quality functioning of the paperless offi ce required automation of these processes. The partners decided to use the Documentum – Business Process Management tool which perfectly enables that.

“We used this tool to model and automate three processes which were the subject matter of the pilot project – process of approving the invoices, contracts and orders,” adds Peter Havrilla, Finance & Telco Division Director, NESS Slovakia, Inc.

Solution Benefits

Today, the processes and document fl ows at Váhostav are based on the paperless office principles. While in the past the orders were issued and approved in paper form, accompanied by a cover letter containing invoice data and signatures of responsible persons, today all the documents are in electronic form. Thanks to the new system, the documents no longer physically “travel”, they are delivered via e-mail. The digitalization of selected documents immediately speeded up the process of their administration and approval. This solution also ensured for substitutability of competent approval processes during a vacation leave as the task is transferred to an authorized deputy. The possibility of parallel approval of certain types of invoices is also a considerable advantage as it results in invoice approval within a couple of days, or even hours, compared to previous periods of weeks and months.

The hardware costs of implementation of this solution are marginal. The entire system operated on three servers, users log in via regular computers and standard web browsers. Viewing an invoice or other documents only requires Acrobat Reader and MS Word, which are nowadays a standard.

Benefits for the Client

• within the approval process, up to 190 activities are fully automated, only 15 are to be performed manually;
• speeding up the administration and approval process;
• better overview of information, their recording and archiving;
• higher transparency;
• improved document security, risk of document loss was decreased to minimum;
• parallel approval of certain types of invoices in electronic form;
• transparency in fi nancial operations;
• implementation of healthy processes that facilitate the process of obtaining quality certificates