At DocuWare, we believe in providing our customers with solutions that relieve the stress of their daily work lives. Simplifying processes improves business efficiency, making their organizations better places to work – with happier employees! When we had an opportunity to write a case study on Berwick Retirement .jpg?width=220&name=Berwick_DerekFord_Berwick_Kamloops_Logo(6).jpg)
Communities, a family-owned business that provides better living spaces for seniors, we were excited because there is such great synergy between what they do and what we do. We’ve helped the staff at Berwick streamline their accounting processes via digitized documents and automated workflows. Now employees are free to spend more time on what really matters – keeping their seniors cared for and happy.
Berwick Retirement Communities builds and manages retirement homes in British Columbia, Canada. To operate its six homes, the company employs 1,400 vendors and processes about 800 invoices a month for catering, housekeeping, nursing supplies, personal care and other essentials.
Streamlining invoice processing
With six retirement homes to operate and more being built, plus two head offices in different locations, Berwick had a complex process of vendor invoice approvals and payments. To collect the necessary signatures and approvals, the invoices had to circulate between different offices. Often, several copies were made in different locations adding unnecessary redundancy.
“We would end up having several copies of invoices in mail or email form,” says Accountant Jenny Jessa – but that did not mean that the invoice would be easy to find when needed. “Sometimes a vendor would call and ask, ‘where is my payment on this invoice,’ and we didn’t know where the invoice was. We needed to improve our workflow process.”
Digitizing records improves vendor communication
Installing DocuWare enabled Berwick personnel to digitize all invoice processing. Staff can now pull up multiple invoices on the screen, add notes to an invoice, or compare current invoice amounts to those from previous months to assure correct totals.
