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Case Study: Retail / Wholesale
Find more case studiesAugsburg-based and family-owned since 1884, Riegele is one of the oldest breweries in the world and a regular recipient of international awards for its products. In addition to traditional beer specialities, the brewery also creates modern craft beer, sells mineral water from its own spring, and produces various soft drinks. The company’s administration organizes all this activity at Riegele with the help of transparent processes and modern IT, including a document management system.
The first goal for introducing the DMS was to wrangle the flood of paper. The company also wanted to reduce the time and effort required for compliant, tamper-free archiving of around 80,000 delivery slips and 12,500 incoming invoices annually. When selecting the DMS, the good price/performance ratio and ease of use and setup were decisive arguments in favor of DocuWare. But the professional competence and proximity of the DocuWare Partner also influenced their choice. The project started in the Purchasing and Financial Accounting departments, where around 50 employees from all departments now work with DocuWare. Both field staff and a nearby logistics center have access to the central document pool across all locations. At the same time, the certified Connect to SAP interface ensures a seamless connection between DMS and ERP solutions. This was implemented by a consulting company specializing in DocuWare SAP integrations.
For our finance solution, DocuWare is the perfect way to integrate electronic document management. The document management system is reliable and it works. This continuity gives us huge advantages.
Peter Baier
Managing Director, Riegele Brewery Augsburg (Germany)
DMS fully integrated into SAP
Today, DocuWare is used both for delivery slips and for verifying incoming invoices. In total, the digital archive contains around 840,000 documents, most of which are multi-page documents. Approximately 300 daily delivery slips are created by the drivers in the Mowis mobile merchandise management system and sent to SAP via a docking station at the end of a delivery. The DocuWare interface indexes and archives all documents electronically and stores them in a way that is tamper-free and guarantees compliance. This makes it possible to quickly determine exactly when and to what extent a customer was supplied.
The SAP integration also ensures that all outgoing invoices and reminders are stored. For inquiries, employees can access all of a customer's documents without having to leave the SAP interface. For complaints, corresponding documents can be sent out by email. Approximately 50 daily incoming invoices are now only processed electronically at Riegele. Each new invoice is scanned and indexed in the mailroom. The digital workflow then distributes the receipts to the task lists of the buyers, where a preliminary check takes place. The invoices are then forwarded to specific departments. If necessary, those responsible can access other documents from SAP for approval and payment release. After this final check, Financial Accounting makes the final posting in the SAP system.
Fast processing times thanks to workflows
If an invoice receives a reminder, the financial accounting staff can conveniently access the document from SAP and immediately obtain information on the current processing status. It is impossible for an invoice to remain unprocessed on a desk or disappear in the system.
Overall, the Riegele employees are very satisfied with the DMS, because their work has become simpler and the effort required for filing and searching has been significantly reduced. Within seconds, all of a customer's documents are available on screen. Inquiries can thus be answered in detail – including by the in-field service team, which has customer information available at all times, even when working abroad. Eliminating the paper archive has also created space for new activities in the Augsburg brewery: it is now being used more profitably as a "Beer Academy" for student brewers.