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SmartHealth
 Video Case Study
PDF Case Study
The Challenge
Overall, SmartHealth wanted to standardize and simplify its invoice
processing system and reduce paper-handling and storage requirements.
The company wanted to do both while increasing processing capacity and
expediting invoice turnaround times--all without increasing staffing levels.
SmartHealth processes all corporate and division invoices through a
centralized accounts payable group located in Phoenix. This means
that the department receives incoming bills from more than 1,500 total
vendors which are serving very different business niches (i.e. dental versus
dermatology) and very different types of customers (i.e. veterinarians versus
freight vendors).
Along with handling multiple entities, the company had to
deal with two disparate purchase order (PO) and invoice
processing platforms. POs were being processed through a
custom-designed, internally-developed program and
invoices through a Macola 7.6 Progession Series Account
Payable package. This added complexity since the two
systems did not "talk" to each other, requiring staff to
manually match purchase orders to submitted bills.
Another major hurdle was finding an advanced
capture solution that would offer a calculable return
on investment. Handling tens of thousands of invoices
annually in multiple document formats, structures
and languages, the company wanted to streamline its
operations but needed to do so with a system that made
sound fiscal sense.
"Most document capture products we were seeing in
the marketplace did not offer the high-level enterprise-class
capabilities we required nor did they demonstrate a
compelling cost-to-value equation," said Randy Burger,
Director of Finance, SmartHealth. "Kofax provided the
sophisticated system we needed and showed us how our
new platform could deliver a clear return on investment."
The Solution
To meet its needs, SmartHealth turned to local Kofax
Certified Solutions Provider Western Office Systems
to implement a solution to automate the company’s
collective purchase order and invoice processing system.
Western Office Systems designed a custom solution
leveraging Kofax Intelligent Capture & Exchange, the
foundation of Kofax’s strategy to help organizations
streamline business processes.
"With Kofax, we tailored a solution that provided the
advanced document capture platform SmartHealth
had been looking for," said Ray Hughes, General
Manager at Western Office Systems. "A highly complex,
labor-intensive process has literally been transformed
into an automated system that is quick, efficient and cost
effective."
SmartHealth’s purchase order and invoice processing
solution uses key elements of Kofax Intelligent Capture
& Exchange, including:
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Kofax Capture, the world’s leading information
capture platform, which automates data capture from
scanned paper or imported documents.
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Kofax VirtualReScan (VRS), the de facto standard
for capture productivity and quality throughout a
document’s lifecycle.
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Kofax Transformation Modules (KTM), which
streamlines the transformation of business documents
into structured electronic information by automating
the processes of document classification and data
extraction.
The Results
Since implementing its Kofax-based solution,
SmartHealth has seen a significant increase in invoice
processing efficiency and output. The company estimates
that productivity has been increased by more than 40
percent and the accounts payables team is now able to
take on as much as 25 percent more volume with 20
percent less staff (processing staff was reduced from five
to four due to attrition).
Staff report that the automated solution is easy to use and
enables them to be much more efficient and accurate. For
example, processors no longer have to go through paper
file boxes when researching invoice questions, so response
times that once took hours have dropped to minutes.
In addition to these improvements, SmartHealth reduced
paper usage by about 50 percent within its accounts
payable department. The company anticipates it will see a
payback from the system within three years.
"We needed a high-level capture platform that could
be customized to our specific needs, and Kofax proved
to be a great fit for us," said Terri Martin, Manager of
Accounts Payable, SmartHealth.
"The solution enables seamless integration with our
existing purchase order generation and invoice processing
systems, and the results speak for themselves," she added.
"Our processing is faster and more accurate. We have a
system that is simple to use and one that our staff likes.
Plus, we are saving the company time and money."
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Founded in 1970, SmartHealth, Inc.--also doing business as SmartPractice
--is a family-owned enterprise that consists of a number of affiliate
companies serving specific vertical healthcare markets
such as the dental, medical, chiropractic, veterinary and eye
care fields. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, the company
employs more than 500 people worldwide and has annual
revenues exceeding $100 million.
Today, SmartHealth manufactures and provides healthcare groups and
professionals with promotional marketing, practice management
and patient communications products and other services in
the United States, Canada, Germany, England, Australia, New Zealand and
Japan. SmartHealth is also a major distributor of dental supplies and gloves
throughout the United States. The organization operates multiple branded
divisions including SmartPractice, SmartScrubs, Allerderm Laboratories,
Mekos, SmartPractice Japan, SmartPractice Finland, and SmartPractice
Canada.
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