5 Business Advantages that Talbot Marketing Achieved with a Simple Software Integration Solution

Written by Joan Honig | Dec 14, 2021

Is your company struggling to connect all the great software applications that run your business? What you need is a centralized document management system with easy-to-configure integration buttons that can be embedded in other third-party applications. With a robust software integration, your team will be able to access documents from any program with just one click. While providing secure and consistent data, integrated systems will also ensure that your business grows into the future with ease. Here is a real-world success story of document management integration.

Talbot Marketing is one of Canada’s largest providers of promotional products, corporate apparel, and uniforms. Talbot helps its clients leverage their brand and market themselves to customers and employees with programs like safety, recognition, incentives, and product launches. Prior to implementing DocuWare, Talbot’s sales order process was managed using a manila envelope to collect all the documents relating to an order. Everything from the initial order, to artwork approval, to shipping and invoicing was added to this envelope, called a docket, and transferred from department to department.

Increasing the speed and accuracy of sales order processing

Today, sales orders are either scanned first if they come in on paper or imported directly into DocuWare if they’re already electronic. They wait in a digital queue until the order entry staff can input them into the company’s ERP system. Using DocuWare Smart Connect, the data from the ERP system is imported into DocuWare and used to index the invoice there. This method eliminates double data entry and ensures that the invoice index fields in DocuWare and data in the ERP are consistent, making document retrieval quick and easy.

The invoice is now indexed by the sales order number, date, company, and the sales representative’s name and routed through the company’s workflow electronically using digital stamps. Once the artwork has been approved, Talbot places an order with their supplier and the merchandise is shipped directly to the customer. As soon as Talbot receives the invoice from the supplier, it triggers another workflow to invoice their customers. Talbot's DocuWare solution enables them to balance workloads among employees and eliminates bottlenecks that were common when they used a manual process.

5 Advantages of Talbot’s Smart Connect Integration

1. Synchronizes data to prevent errors. With other forms of systems integration, data can be lost or corrupted during the data exchange. With Smart Connect the data and the document are connected by shared index fields. This ensures that the data is accurate in both systems.

2. Enables Talbot to see at-a-glance how many orders are waiting to be processed, where they are in the process and the value of each order. With DocuWare, they can manage cash flow, workloads and ensure no orders are lost or stalled.

3. Achieves cost savings by reducing the amount of time spent searching for information. Talbot Marketing’s staff can confirm the details of an order within seconds.

4. Maximizes the functionality of the ERP system that Talbot’s employees are already familiar with. There is no need to buy additional disconnected applications.

5. Bolsters Talbot’s commitment to safeguarding personal information collected during the order process.

“Overall, the number of documents we print has been reduced by 90% as electronic processes have been put in place. More significant than our cost or environmental savings is our ability to ensure orders are being processed in a timely manner and accounts payable invoices are being processed efficiently. Our Return on Investment was achieved in less than one year, but we saw an immediate improvement in our customer service with our new ability to quickly place orders and address issues that may arise,” Ian Nicol, Finance Manager for Talbot Marketing explained.

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