Simplify Department of Transportation Required Forms with Automation

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As a manufacturer or distributor, ensuring that your products get to the right place at the right time is a priority. While you can have the best technology to ensure that your supply chain is efficient, it’s also equally important to have a team that is going to work hard for your organization. By hiring efficient, competent drivers, you can ensure your brand is well-represented and your partners and customers are happy. When hiring your fleet, how do you ensure that the drivers are compliant with state-specific DOT regulations?

Completing the forms required to meet those regulations is time-consuming for both your new hires and your Human Resources team, and incomplete or incorrect forms have much larger consequences than other internal forms. The question is, how can you ensure these forms are completed in an efficient manner while still being compliant?

By implementing a smart web forms solution.

How do web forms integrate with your DOT onboarding?

The typical process when certifying drivers begins at the application stage. Basic background information is entered, along with 10 years of consecutive previous work history, 3 years of previous address history, accident history, and any additional qualifying qualifying questions. Often organizations require this process to be completed on paper, which is tedious and time-consuming, and also prone to errors. Given the detailed information that is required for this, applicants can spend a lot of time and energy gathering the information, and needing to enter it multiple times in multiple places only prolongs the process, and plain and simple can be annoying for the applicant to complete.

By implementing multiple dynamic forms, you simplify the driver application and can seamlessly feed the information into completing the required background checks.

How does the process work?

In a typical customer use case for these sorts of forms, the entire process is completed within our web forms solution.

First, to meet requirements, candidates complete the driver application form alongside a local HR manager. The human resources department can then push this data directly to their workforce management software using a custom integration. This means once the applicant enters their Social Security Number all the applicant’s data (e.g. DOB, address, previous work history, etc) can be automatically pulled and displayed. The applicant then completes the appropriate state forms based on the state and type of employment they are being hired for.

Once required forms such as the statement of on-duty hours, driving record review, safety performance history, and driver license compliance forms are completed by the candidate, the web form can then be easily sent to the background check company of your organization’s choice. With traditional completion methods, this can completely halt the hiring workflow for multiple days to print, fax, or mail the forms, but by submitting the completed forms electronically it speeds up the process.

After the background comes back clean and the HR manager wants to move the applicant to the next step, the candidate will reenter the hiring workflow and complete any state-specific DOT forms. Smart Web Forms can immediately discern the current state (based on the business address and employee’s address) and displays the appropriate forms dynamically, Human Resources doesn’t need to keep piles of these forms on hand if they have drivers at multiple locations in multiple states and there is no risk of the incorrect form being completed.

Once the HR manager decides they’d like the candidate to move forward, they complete the final Driver Consent form. Rather than copy and paste the data into PDFs and other documents, the software automatically overlays the webform data onto your existing onboarding PDFs.

Upon final completion, a digital checklist web form is launched and is placed under the candidate’s name in the HR manager’s task list. The checklist form will remain open while the driver has their driving skills assessed on the company course and completes any other post-on-boarding activities. Once these tasks are complete, the HR manager can simply check them off, ensuring that every required assessment is completed.

The web form then records the date of signature by the candidate and HR can add one year for notifications of expiration of DOT certification. Rather than this data being managed in mulitple places and risking expiration and fines, HR managers now have a running report of all expiring employee certifications to ensure compliance with state mandates.

Why web forms?

The aforementioned process, while still possible, would be a complete hassle to complete without web forms. The candidate would have to complete the forms on paper, manually writing in each step, or by PDF and having to manage manually formatting the document. Once each form is completed, the HR manager would have to type or re-type the information into their HRIS and background check program. This extends the time spent on the hire, and when your organization is in a period of hiring to fill a need, spending more time on each applicant means it takes longer for them to get on the road.

Without automated web forms, this process could easily take twice as long. Additionally, candidates may become fed up during the process and may not even complete it. Web forms are a better solution for both your employees and your potential candidates.  Mosaic has experience creating custom form solutions that integrate with your HRIS and ERP systems and can help your organization determine exactly the right workflows that going to work well for your business.

Schedule a demo with us, call 1-800-387-7859

What are Integrated Expense Report Forms?

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Organizations of every size typically have expenses that employees need to be reimbursed for. It could be for taking clients out to a meal, gas or travel expenses incurred when visiting clients or attending seminars or training, or utilized for other miscellaneous purchases necessary to an employee to best complete their jobs. Regardless of what the expense is, it’s important that organizations have an effective way to track these expenditures, reimburse their employees accordingly, and maintain a record of these expenses. 

For organizations that have employees working remotely or on the road often, expense reports can be much more difficult to obtain using traditional methods. As your organization’s workforce grows and adapts, it’s important to invest in solutions that evolve with your team.

What the current expense reporting process looks like

For many organizations, expense reports are maintained on paper, with employees stapling their receipts to the front. This process, while considered to be standard, is incredibly outdated and can prove to be frustrating for employees.

Employees completing the forms have to either print them out or obtain them directly from your accounts payable team. Then they have to compile all their receipts from over the course of the expense period, which varies between organizations, or they need to complete a report each time they make an expensed purchase.

Some organizations believe they have innovated the process by having employees email their reports and receipts, but with no clear parameters or structure, your employees might not give you all the correct information, and the reports will be difficult to track and organize.    

How web forms can simplify expense reports

Rather than have employees use a paper expense report, they can use web forms instead. The employee can log into the web form and fill out the required fields, upload a photo of their receipt, and send it directly to accounting to review. 

The data filled in the required fields will automatically generate onto a digital form that can be automatically filed in your current Document Management system, assigned to the correct employee. That same data will then be pushed directly into your Enterprise Resource Planning or other financial software to automatically track the expenses. 

Your employees completing the forms will spend significantly less time filing their expense reports, and employees in accounting will no longer have to manually enter and reenter information in order to track expenses and cut checks. With Integrated Expense Report Forms, you can reassign employees completing data entry to other tasks or reduce your workforce entirely.  

Why you should take forms to the next level

Beyond the initial time and cost savings, investing in Integrated Expense Report Forms can help your organization in the long run. Because these forms are automatically recorded, tracked, and organized, you can easily review them in the case of an audit or for any other reason. This helps save your employees time spent searching through closets and filing cabinets for the records or scrolling through thousands of emails to find a specific report from a certain date range. 

Additionally, making daily processes easier for employees is a key part of ensuring that they remain engaged and happy. This leads to stronger retention and overall a more positive and productive work environment. 

How Mosaic can help 

Mosaic has experience in deploying custom Integrated Expense Report Forms that can seamlessly work with a business’ existing systems. Give us a call at 1-800-387-7859 to schedule your custom solution review. 

 

6 Ways Your Organization Can Use Web Forms

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What forms does your organization utilize? Once you begin to take inventory of all of the forms you rely on to complete common tasks, you may be surprised at how many you use.

How do you and your employees complete these forms? Often they’re completed on paper, making them prone to errors, missing information, and being misplaced. Fillable PDF forms eliminate the paper aspect of the process, but they’re often difficult to complete and don’t save any time compared to paper.

Implementing a smart web forms product can eliminate these issues and create a simpler, more streamlined process for you and your employees. Organizations often don’t realize the full potential of a web forms product and worry that it’s limited to just one specific process or department. The benefit of web forms is that they’re flexible and scalable, meaning they can fit in with just about any process or need, and thanks to Mosaic’s implementation consultants, they can be customized to your organization.

So, exactly where can these forms be used? We’ll review 6 common uses, but the beauty of web forms is that any paper form can be transformed into a web form.

Onboarding Paperwork

The time from when a new hire signs their offer letter to their first week is crucial for an organization to make a good impression on their new employee. Forms such as I-9, W-4, WOTC, 401K, Direct Deposit, and Benefits Elections can easily turn in to stacks of paperwork. These forms also require new hires to write out the same basic information over and over again.

Online forms simplify the process and eliminate redundancy. Each form gets filled out quicker and there is less margin for error. Also, employees simply e-sign their documents, meaning no printing, signing, and scanning necessary.

Timesheets/Time Off Requests

Processing and managing timesheets and time-off requests is a heavy lift for human resources. It’s not uncommon for paper timesheets and time-off requests to go missing or for data to be entered incorrectly. Web forms allow for your employees to quickly fill out their timesheets as well as submit time off requests to their managers for approval.

Contracts

If your organization requires employees, vendors, or clients to sign any sort of contract, you understand the frustration that comes with trying to get a signature. This becomes increasingly difficult if you are sending contracts outside your physical office. Using web forms makes it simple to send contracts to the right people to review, and with wet signatures, they can sign them from their computer, tablet, or even mobile device, no printing and scanning required.

Expense Reports

When your employees submit expense reports, they typically have two choices, scan their invoices and receipts and email them in bulk to accounting, or staple together the physical documents and drop them off in person. Both processes aren’t organized, and there’s a high likelihood for documents to get lost or entered incorrectly. Web forms can eliminate the disorganization of paper expense reporting and can help track employee submissions.

Purchase Orders/Proof of Delivery

If you operate in the manufacturing or distribution space, you likely have countless orders placed weekly. Typically the existing process requires new documents for each step, the purchase order, the picking ticket, verification documents, delivery slip, proof of delivery, and other documentation. Web forms can not only make the order process easier for customers, but it can also help move along your workflow and reduce the number of physical documents attached to each order. Proof of delivery tickets are digital and able to be updated instantly with wet signature verification.

Healthcare

Many nonprofits and healthcare organizations have antiquated patient onboarding processes. Stacks of paper forms are required for patients or caretakers to complete and for your organization to track. Additionally, crucial patient records are left disorganized, which can not only be a point of frustration for your employees, but it can also lead to legal issues.  Web forms can solve that. A custom patient onboarding workflow connects directly to your ECM. Meaning you can quickly onboard patients and easily track them.

 

These are just a small sample of the uses for web forms for your organization. At Mosaic, we can help you determine the perfect use for forms in your organization. Think your organization would benefit from migrating from paper-based forms to web forms but aren’t sure how? Give us a call at 770.452.7373 and we’ll see how your current business processes can benefit.