Archive for the ‘Case Studies’ Category

What People Are Saying About Document Management

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

BusinessWest Online, the business journal of Western Massachusetts, recently posted an article on the impact that lowering our use of paper can have on the environment and on our workflow. You can read the article here.

Brenda Olesuk

Firm Administrator, Meyers Brothers Kalicka in Holyoke

Our industry, I’m proud to say, took this seriously a long time ago.

Our company has been paperless for years. That means a number of things. All our products — tax returns, financial statements, all those products that used to be done by hand with a ledger — are now done with software programs that have online imaging. We’re able to do all the work, and everything is PDFed and maintained in those programs.

It completely eliminates the need for inefficient file cabinets. Client documents, health and human resources materials, even marketing and office stuff can be maintained virtually.

Corey Murphy

President, First American Insurance in Chicopee

First American Insurance recently scanned and shredded 30 boxes of paper.

First American Insurance recently scanned and shredded 30 boxes of paper.

In our industry, we generate a tremendous amount of paper. But, like every aspect of financial services — a broad category that also includes banks and credit unions, accountants, and investment firms, among others — the insurance industry is trying to generate less of it.

All the carriers are trying to do many more transfers of information electronically, as opposed to sending us paperwork: reports, policies, things like that.

In our company, I know that the vast majority of our information is now stored electronically. There still is a significant amount of paper, though we spend a lot of our time taking the paperwork into electronic form, scanning and storing it. The insurance industry might be behind the electronic curve, but we’re trying to catch up.

Richard Kretz

Kostin, Ruffkess and Co.

There’s no question that companies need to start working on assessing their sustainability efforts. The time is drawing nearer when it will be a necessity to have at least some type of report available that outlines what your company is doing with regard to minimizing its impact on the planet and maximizing its efforts to help members of your community.

After all, helping people is what financial services are all about.

Cost Savings with CNG-SAFE

Friday, January 8th, 2010

CabinetNGCNG-SAFE, the flagship document management product by Cabinet NG, provides a means of viewing, managing, and sharing your documents after they have been scanned. We all know that software isn’t free, but what is the cost of not having electronic documents and an electronic workflow?

Reliance Bank has done the legwork and have calculated that it’s significant, and have implemented an electronic document repository system with CNG-SAFE. Four times a year, for several days at a time, their hired loan auditors need access to the bank’s documents in the Alabama office. If you’ve ever booked hotels, meals, and transportation, you know they aren’t cheap, either. And that’s if everything goes according to plan. Figuring in delays, cancellations, and availability, your company might need to employ a full-timer just to manage the travel affairs.

Reliance Bank is trimming that back significantly. Now, three of the four audits are handled via mail. Disks with thousands of images of scanned documents are sent off to the auditors for review.

Other features of Cabinet NG’s  CNG-SAFE that Reliance Bank is utilizing are a Super Search desktop app for Vista/Windows 7, a “mind reader” that performs scanned document searches from a users clipboard, a cabinet specifically for frequently viewed documents, and other features that allow quicker filing of outside scanned documents.

“The paperwork becomes cumbersome to keep up with. And [in the past] documents would get shredded that didn’t need to get shredded. If we have a paperless file, even if a document got shredded, it wouldn’t be a problem.”
David Kinchler, CEO of Reliance Bank

While the ROI on document scanning and electronic workflow systems is invariably high, many small banks are still reluctant to enact them because of the initial investments required, reports Sheri McLeish, an analyst for Forrester Research.

Rod Nelsestuen, a research director for TowerGroup, also believes document management “as a service” should emerge shortly, bringing costs down even more and providing additional incentives for adoption since banks will be billed as they use the technology.

Source: AmericanBanker.com

Another Court Takes a Step Toward “Paperless”

Friday, December 11th, 2009
Town of Manheim Court

Town of Manheim Court

It’s been a few years in the making, but a small town court in Herkimer County, NY is finally taking the first step toward achieving a paperless office.

Soon, countless hours of administrative paper-shuffling will be eliminated. The problem of sharing documents requested by federal agencies, and even among their own staff, will be solved. And the 300 square foot room that housed their records will again enjoy the luxury of elbow room. While the project is only slated to digitize about fifteen boxes initially, there are dozens more waiting.

There were recommendations to move the documents to microfilm, a medium which does boast longevity and versatility. A properly stored roll of microfilm can last upwards of 500 years, and no matter how technology changes, in a pinch you could always view microfilm with nothing more than a magnifying glass.

These qualities have driven archivists to opt for film for over 150 years, but even in a warehouse of canisters of rolls, you still need to locate them. While viewing is rather simple, retrieval is still a major stumbling block.

And even within the discussion of longevity, most documents carry a retention period of five to ten years. That kind of makes the shelf-life of microfilm, not to mention the overhead involved in generating and storing it, overkill.

Lock 17 in Little Falls

Lock 17 in Little Falls

The break came this year when the Justice Court Assistance Program (JCAP) grant that the court had been applying for came through. Since 1999, JCAP has been awarding grants of up to $30,000 to town and village courts for purposes ranging from office and security equipment to furniture to courtroom renovations. Many courts in the area have utilized this grant to update their records and put them in a digital format.

Aside from the service of having the boxes scanned, the grant also covers CNG-SAFE, a record retrieval, viewing, and tracking software, and in-house equipment such as document scanners to handle day-forward paper. Once the step is made to get your documents digitized, it’s hard to justify not implementing some process for scanning new documents as they are generated.

If you are interested in back-file document scanning or installing a solution to go paperless, please don’t hesitate to call us.