Electronic documents have changed the way we do things here at Wayne Safety. The time and cost saving have been amazing. We are looking to expand this practice into all our other departments. The staff at Beckard Associates and MasterWorks Distribution System has made a significant and positive change to our operations and they continue to deliver value every day.
The Challenge
Wayne Safety is a wholesale distributor of personal protective equipment like gloves and protective eye-ware with distribution centres in Toronto and Calgary. The company had a large client base, many of whom place several orders a month for safety products. With hundreds of invoices every day, Wayne Safety had been spending tens of thousands of dollars a year on postage to send out customer invoices and statements. This cost does not include the paper, envelops and time and equipment expense to print these documents. There is also staff time to stuff them into envelops and mail. These costs ate into Wayne Safety margins on each sale. This also consumed a great amount of staff time every day to generate the mail outs.
The Solution
Eliminating all the paper in the invoicing process was the key to solving this issue. At every step of the invoice cycle costs and inefficiencies were identified. It was clear to everyone that moving to electronic documents for invoicing and customer statements would resolve this costly business overhead and add value to Wayne Safety’s ability to service its customers better.
The Results
Wayne Safety now has a simple and fast system for invoicing that saves them money every day. These savings include:
- Elimination of the hundreds of hours spent on manual paper generation of invoice and customer statement documents
- Electronic documents have resulted in an improved customer satisfaction level. Invoices are delivered more closely or even before the goods arrive to the clients’ site
- This is a green initiative that saves paper and storage space for both Wayne Safety and the customer. Neither is required to print the document to paper, they only need to store the PDF document on a server
- Electronic documents have resulted in less ware on the existing printers and equipment
Key Benefits
- Electronic documents are providing an immediate return on investment. There is significant and ongoing cost savings over sending invoices and statements by Canada Post.
- Reduction in space requirements in the office, since invoices and statements need not be printed and filled.
- Less office overhead on paper, envelopes, printers, ink, tonner and staff time to prepare daily mailings
- Electronic documents are resulting in a faster payment cycle with customers and an improved customer relationship. Invoices are delivered to the customer on the same day the goods are shipped. Customers get to know the goods are on route when they receive the invoice document
- Staff now has easy access to invoices and statements. All documents are saved and archived electronically as PDF files on the server