Paper is the one thing food and beverage companies handle every single day that’s costing businesses too much every year. Paper brings processes to a halt, increases financial and regulatory risks, and damages vendor and customer relationships.
Our Electronic Content Management(ECM) Solutions eliminate the paper and the inefficiencies it 
causes. The first step is getting control of the content that most ERP systems tend to miss. This includes scanned paper documents (invoices, employee files, recall records) and imported electronic files (emails, reports, e-forms, EDI transfers). By integrating one of our ECM solutions with your ERP systems content is all in one place so users easily access it.
With an ECM solution information is routed to the right people at the right time through the system they’re most comfortable using, greatly improving employee productivity.
Accounts Payable
Organizations need to stay in good standing with critical vendors and slowdowns in Accounts Payable can jeopardize this. Paper invoices, purchase orders and other related information take too long to find and accounts payable staff have to wait as paper is passed along from person to person for approval. In addition, AP can’t get a complete picture of the cash flow because documentation isn’t linked to the data in your ERP system, which means important financial decisions are often missing crucial information.
With ECM software, accounts payable departments electronically capture documents in any format – mail, fax, EDI transfer, and emails. Automatically, invoices and related documents are routed for review and approvals. Related documents are tied directly to your ERP system, so users just double click and related documents open right up. Invoices processing is much faster and more vendors are paid on time.
Accounts Receivable
If paper is forefront in your Accounts Receivable processes, then there are inefficiencies in closing out receivables. You might be losing revenue based on false deductions. Paper also often results in missing information, difficulty identifying unauthorized and preventable deductions, and slow customer service.
Our ECM solutions improve accounts receivable management by automatically identifying required documents and showing which ones are missing. Deductions like trade spend, early pay discounts and volume pricing are quickly verified.
For unauthorized discounts our ECM AR Software automatically generates letters with how much each customer owes and why and includes the appropriate documentation to prove and validate the information in the letter. Disputes are resolved quickly and fairly improving customer service.
ERP Integrations
Even the best ERP has trouble handling documents such as paper invoices, POs, packing slips, and employee files that are outside of your enterprise resource planning software. Staff usually store them in file folders or on a network share , making them difficult and time consuming to find and use. Our software can integrate seamlessly with any ERP system so you can link content directly to screens on your ERP and employees never have to leave ERP. In fact, they don’t even know they are using a different solution – they think it’s a new feature to the existing ERP. Staff can now stop wasting time searching for content and spend more time on getting invoices paid faster or keeping customers happy.
Human Resources
In many food and beverage companies, human resources deal with higher than average turnover rates. Hiring and separation are constant. With ECM HR software, staff members digitally capture, route and review applicant files so all the information to make smart hiring decisions is in one place.
Once the applicant is an employee, all of his/her documents stay together in a secure electronic folder. If something is missing, human resources staff members quickly identify it because it will be marked in red. This way, each employee file is complete and in compliance with regulatory standards. Our software integrates documents with the existing ERP software or human resource information system (HRIS) adding value to these existing systems and documents are always at HR’s fingertips.
Food Recall Management
Failure to handle a food recall well, and your company risks irreversible damage. Plus, legislation will soon be passed that gives the FDA the power to order, monitor and enforce mandatory recalls.
When a recall happens you have to be ready to quickly find the affected areas with the right documents. This is where having a well integrated ERP and ECM solution really matters. The match up allows you to access any piece of information that could possibly be related, be it the quantity made, purchaser, a copy of the paper invoice, the shipping documents and proof of delivery. This gives you complete visibility into your supply chain. Taking the technology a step further, you can also automatically send e-mail recall notifications only to the organizations that received tainted food. These organizations can then let you know that they complied with the recall by simply replying to the e-mail with a complied response. Then, you use your dashboard view to see who has complied and who has not.
Audits
Audits are a top concern for food manufacturers. If audit findings are not complete, operations may have to be shut down until issues are resolved causing major financial losses and brand damage. Preparing your organization with the appropriate reporting tools to ensure compliance is more important than ever due to the national food safety overhauls. Documentation is coming from all sources and all different formats. Documents are coming from growers, vendors, shippers and manufacturers and include everything from quality inspection reports, bill of lading, and invoices. All of these documents are vital pieces of the food supply chain. They need to be centrally stored and easily accessible for audits. Our ECM solution captures documents in any format(faxes, emails, paper) from wherever they are received or produced , indexes them according to data that exists in your ERP and makes them available immediately to any authorized user from anywhere.