At a Glance
- Client: D4C Dental
- Industry: Healthcare/Dental
- Departments: Accounts Payable, Finance
Challenges
- Manual paper-based processing despite rapid acquisition growth
- AP department over 90 days in arrears with low employee morale
- High error rates in Dynamics GP data entry
- Expensive shipping costs for invoices from remote locations
- Inconsistent invoice approval processes
- Limited visibility into outstanding payables
Solution
- AP Automation Services
- DocStar ECM AP Automation
- Intelligent Data Capture
- Integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP
- Electronic document workflows
- Mobile approval capabilities
Results
- 70% reduction in invoice processing time
- $350,000 savings in year one
- Ability to integrate new practices within 10 business days
- Significantly reduced error rates
- Eliminated shipping and printing costs
- Improved vendor relationships and company reputation
AP Automation Solutions for Multi-Location Healthcare Organizations and Medical Practices in the Cressey & Company Investment Portfolio.
One of the key strategies that has made Cressey & Company successful in generating significant ROI for investors is to start with a strong healthcare company and then grow the company (or medical practice) through accretive acquisitions. To generate an expeditious return on investment, scalable technology and processes should be implemented.
One of the largest of these back-office costs is accounts payable (AP) processing which can reduce profits through uncontrolled headcount growth, printing costs, high error rates, employee and vendor frustration, and vendor late fees. Further, a badly managed AP department can hinder the process of acquiring additional practices and locations as unpaid suppliers stop shipping medical supplies and other needed items because of non-payment. The reputation of the organization suffers as doctors begin to divulge how suppliers are not paid in a timely manner.
Mosaic Corporation specializes in the implementation of the Docstar ECM AP Solution into these high growth multi-location medical and healthcare environments and has a proven track record with D4C in Atlanta.
Challenges at D4C AP Department
- Acquisitions increased the number of locations but D4C was using a manual paper-based processing model.
- AP was over 90 days in arrears on some accounts and needed more headcount. Very low employee morale.
- High error rates of data entry into Dynamics GP resulting in double/over-pays and no visibility to outstanding invoices.
- New locations being acquired were not integrated into the AP process as it was not defined.
- High cost of shipping invoices to Atlanta from remote locations using UPS, FedEx, and lost invoices.
- Incurring high printing costs as every invoice received via email was printed, posted, and manually filed.
- Slow payment turnaround to suppliers because invoices were not received.
- Very limited or no approval process for invoices.
- Inability to find invoices once scheduled or paid and difficulty with locating received invoices.
Solution for D4C AP Department
Tony James, CFO at D4C, retained the services of Mosaic, along with an internal processing engineer (Debbi McCreary of Summit OG, LLC) to streamline AP. The result is savings of over $350,000 in year one by implementing Docstar ECM’s AP Automation solution. The benefits include:
- Integration of new practices immediately following acquisition; scalability
- Capture all invoices electronically using standard MFP copiers at locations or getting vendors to send PDFs
- Intelligent data capture software to harvest all data from invoices using advanced OCR technology
- Employment of Docstar ECM’s workflow to route invoices to approvers who can approve on PCs or smartphones
- Automatic updates to Dynamics GP eliminating manual data entry and lowering error rates significantly
- Visibility to accrued outstanding payables and other key info through Docstar ECM’s reporting tools
- Lowered costs of document storage and printing
- Creation of goodwill with vendors and leadership
Today, a team of three AP people are processing many thousands of invoices per month with much lower error rates, much faster pay cycles, almost no printing costs (in AP), and flatlined shipping costs. D4C can now acquire a new dental practice and completely take over the payables to their suppliers in less than 10 business days! Mosaic & Summit OG would like to work with Cressey & Company to offer our services to other current partners in your portfolio that are having similar issues.
