Scalability with Digitalization
The start-up is focused on growing quickly: By July 1, 2024, the website was already online, and after just six months they had received over 3,000 orders. About 1,000 vehicles are already on the roads; by the end of 2025 that number should rise to more than 4,000. To achieve these ambitious goals, it is essential to digitalize all internal and external processes as much as possible – one of the company’s key guiding principles.
From the very beginning, two add-ons were integrated into the DocuWare Cloud installation: one for Intelligent Document Processing and one to make key documents available to customers in an online portal. The latter addition plays a key role in customer-facing processes, including processing traffic violations for the rented vehicles. The IDP’s artificial intelligence is also helpful for more traditional digitalization processes like processing incoming invoices, where it helps to extract and classify documents.
Challenges with Recognition
Processing minor traffic offences and other violations presented a particular challenge for the recognition software, because Germany does not use a single unified notification form – each state authority has its own variation. That means that the software must first extract the information pertaining to the offence and the vehicle. Following that, the system compares the data with the CRM system HubSpot to identify the responsible customer and forward the required information to the authorities. In parallel, the customer is notified.
Digital invoice processing was part of the DMS installation from the very beginning, and went live just two months after the company’s launch. Incoming invoices go through a two- or three-stage approval process, depending on the value. They are assigned to the appropriate account via a digital workflow before being posted in the DATEV financial software. While invoices are received almost exclusively in digital formats – either by email or as an e-invoice (ZUGFeRD, in this case), official notices of traffic violations still typically arrive by post. These are digitized with a powerful, high-performance scanner. The IDP solution, which uses machine learning, now achieves an impressive 90% recognition rate for data from the scanned documents.
Totally Transparent Customer Portal
The digital document archive is at the heart of the company’s business processes. All 20 relevant document types – including orders, contracts, traffic violations, parking permits, vehicle registration certificates, drivers’ licenses, damage reports and assessments – are stored centrally and drive both internal and customer-facing processes. Customers can access their documents directly through the customer portal – and soon via a dedicated app. It’s a fully digital process that guarantees maximum transparency and efficiency.
