What does going digital mean?
Going digital does not just mean moving to the cloud or having access to your applications anywhere, anytime.
It also involves streamlining processes and having access to documents as and when needed.
Streamlining processes
While automation would be at the core of streamlining processes, this would also involve removing or, at the very least, minimizing steps involved in completing a specific task.
Take for example the process or procurement.
The steps involved would include, generating a purchase requisition, getting the requisition approved, and so on.
We spoke of the Procure to Pay process in an earlier article.
There are other processes involved as well and we will address those separately.
Document management
The other part of going digital is how do you manage the deluge of documents that move through your business?
These documents would need to be organised and, more importantly, be accessible as and when needed.
In every business, this starts when you generate documents within your business, like sales invoices, payment vouchers, etc.
The normal process would be to print multiple copies, distribute some and file the others.
There are 2 considerations to take into account here:
- Automate the process of distribution, and,
- File away the document
In the second consideration, we also need to ensure that the document is easily accessible to those who need to refer to it as and when needed.
Can this be done with Sage 300?
Yes, certainly!
Spindle Document Distribution helps with both.
You can set it up in such a way that when you print, you can specify:
Which printer to use
For example, if you were processing the shipment of an order, you can set Spindle up to print to the printer at the Warehouse, provided it’s on the same network.
On the other hand, for Invoices, you could set Spindle to email out the document directly to the customer instead of printing it out.
Here, you can also set Spindle to attach supporting documents such as the delivery order, etc.
In fact, you can create separate Terms & Conditions document and have those automatically attached to your invoice as well.
Document filing
Are physical documents really necessary?
Even if they were, how do you or others access them when needed?
The process of going digital also involves converting from paper to digital copies of documents.
Having digital documents makes it so much easier to access and view them when needed.
All you need is a shared drive where documents are saved to.
In Spindle, you can set to save a copy of the document to a shared drive.
Spindle then saves it to a specific folder and names the document accordingly.
For example, if you were sending an invoice to Ronald Black, Spindle will create a folder for Ronald Black if it does not exist, and save a copy of the invoice in there.
All that with just a click of a button, i.e. you select to print the document and Spindle does the rest!
Linking documents to transactions
What would be even better is to be able to access the document itself when reviewing the transaction.
Document Management Link does exactly that.
It links one or more documents to transactions as well as to the particular customer or vendor.
Document Management Link allows you not only to link supporting documents but also to categorise them.
As an example, if there was a contract for the supply of goods to a customer, and while issuing the invoice, you needed to refer to it, you can do so with ease.
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