VitalAire Processes More Invoices in Less Time
Introduction
VitalAire Canada Inc, a member of The Air Liquide Medical network, is a leading Canadian provider of Respiratory Healthcare products for hospitals and home care clients. Their Medical Gases and Hospital Services business unit specializes in serving the medical gas needs of the Canadian marketplace.
Problem
VitalAire’s head office Accounting department relied on manual processes for the tracking, filing and retrieving of their paper based Proof of Delivery Note (POD) documents. These included three different document types: Bulk Gas Delivery Note, Pre-Printed Delivery Note and Manual Delivery Note.
Each month approximately 6,000 pages of POD documents were created for shipments of medical gases and respiratory products to VitalAire’s institutional customers (hospitals, clinics, labs) across Canada.
VitalAire recognized the challenges posed by their existing business process including managing the movement of POD documents back to their head office as well as filing, retrieving and making these documents easily available to their Accounting staff; resulting in delays in issuing invoices for Accounts Receivables, collections and the overall increased costs to their business.
VitalAire was looking to improve this process by replacing paper based POD documents with electronic images and consolidating these documents so they could be accessed quickly, accurately and securely via a web based search and retrieval archiving software solution, resulting in increased productivity and reduced costs.
Solution
Octacom implemented a complete document conversion solution for VitalAire’s Proof of Delivery Note documents. This included the daily receipt of scanned documents from eleven medical Fill Plant locations across Canada and the processing, indexing and upload of these electronic documents to an Octacom developed web based document imaging software system (ODISS) for the archiving, retrieval, approval, viewing and distribution of documents within the organization.
Results
VitalAire’s accounting staff has 24 x7 access to their electronic Proof of Delivery Notes from any location.
There has been a significant reduction in lost or damaged Proof of Delivery Notes, allowing for better document consolidation and faster invoicing while improved confirmation and approval process means VitalAire now produces more invoices in less time.
"Over the past two years, VitalAire/Air Liquide Medical has been working with Octacom to improve our order confirmation process. Prior to working with Octacom, it took approx. 8-10 business days to convert an order into an invoice. Since implementing Octacom’s outsourced document management solution, it now takes just 24 - 48 hours to manage the same process.
Octacom has been an excellent organization to work with during this transition period. They offer great support and solutions for all our needs. We look forward to continue working with Octacom to further improve our business processes," commented Steven DaSilva, National Customer Service Manager, VitalAire/Air Liquide Medical.
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