The main goals for turning to digitization was to reduce these enormous mountains of paper and drastically shorten processing times, while at the same time enhancing their services for dealers and suppliers. The solution concept included a special Internet portal for the distribution of all outgoing invoices. Equipped with dedicated access rights, dealers were able to retrieve invoices from an electronic mailbox around the clock. The existing IBM mainframe system with an ERP solution developed in-house posed a particular challenge, which was addressed with adaptations that worked well with the flexible DocuWare system.
Many Millions of Documents
Today, a digital workflow is used for processing incoming invoices. All paper-based invoices are digitized via scanners, indexed by the DMS, filed and then checked in an approval process , often in several countries. Software tools allow the creation of a wide variety of reports, for example, on open tasks. A portal solution for distributing outgoing invoices has also been developed in-house. An integration interface developed by the DocuWare Partner controls the transfer of invoices from the ERP system to the portal and the digital archive. Today, about 1,000 DAF employees access DocuWare, both at the company headquarters and in international subsidiaries. By 2011, it was estimated that more than five million documents had already been securely stored in the central document pool.
Digital invoice portal reduces the workload for staff and dealers
Sending A/R invoices via the digital dealer portal is a significant relief for DAF Trucks and a welcome service improvement for dealers. Thanks to lightning-fast document access, employees can process queries and complaints quickly and without loads of bureaucracy. Added to this: savings in storage space, lower paper consumption and the elimination of time-consuming mail routes.
The benefits of end-to-end process digitization is even clearer in their extremely transparent and secure processing of incoming A/P invoices. If, for example, an order could not previously be clearly assigned, invoice verification proved to be extremely time-consuming, since copies were then first sent to different branches to clarify departmental responsibility. Today, DAF Trucks can electronically distribute unclear invoices to a large group of people in the shortest possible time and quickly determine who needs to check and approve the information in the invoice. An advantage that not only increases efficiency, but also ensures they can meet early payment discounts. The flexibility of the system is also greatly appreciated: if the company would like to switch to a different ERP such as SAP, for example, the DMS can be quickly adapted, thanks to its modularity and variety of existing interfaces. This also increases the investment security of the solution.
