Business class document archiving suggestions

J

jtr8178

Limp Gawd
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Jun 21, 2008
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Our company is looking at changing how we move our accounts payable paperwork around. Right now, we do it like it was done 20 years ago -- Mail original copies of invoices/statements from branch locations to our central location and have half a dozen different people sign off on it. Obviously this can be done by doing some type of digital document archiving.

Most of the companies I've looked at so far are too small (Dentist office type solution) or too large (Fortune 500 companies) ... I'm looking for something in the middle.

We want to scan invoices at each location to a central server, and have the proper software setup for controls, indexing, access, security, etc.. Does anyone have any good solutions they are currently using now that they would recommend?
 
Have you looked at Toshiba Docuware? I recently had two clients move to this (one a electrical supply distributor, one a investment house). The price is a bit on the high side, but it scales well from what I have seen and does exactly what you are looking for. The other nice thing about it is that it has mail server plugins so that you can not only archive all your paperwork, but also email, and other virtual documents too (will do folder scraping). When we asked they said it complies with ISO, SEC, HIPAA, PCI, and basically any other business standard we could throw at it.
 
There are two DMS solutions that I'm looking at for work to replace our system. These systems both have web interfaces and built in workflow systems that can be configured for AP, AR, HR /Payroll, etc. My favorite of the two is OnBase by Hyland software it interfaces with any software packages you are using to generate invoices and the like. The other is by API which does the same thing as OnBase however the interfaces aren't as flexible.

OnBase costs more upfront but yearly maintenance is cheaper (around $2-3,000/yr is what I was quoted). API's maintenance came in around $15-20,000/yr.
 
The thing with DMS software is that nearly all of them tend to be a PITA, :p
Nearly all the prices tend to be on the high side, and sometimes you don't get what you pay for :eek:

I'd recommend Alfresco (think Untangle-like obsession here ;) ).
http://www.alfresco.com/
The DM, RM and Share modules are what you probably need right now.
Really powerful, easy to customize and great price if you ever think about going full scale, organization wide ECM.


If that doesn't float your boat, try Feith:
http://www.feith.com
Allows for pretty much everything as well. I've worked with the Workflow/BPM and Document Imaging aspects. It's pretty nice imo.
 
Yeah it's true that DMS solutions aren't "cheap" and they can be a PITA. However, if you spend the time up front to document the business process and work with the vendor of any product you can create a pretty seamless workflow.

Definitely spend the time up front to document the business process and create a workflow for each aspect you want the product to cover. I inherited a project that had no business process and no workflow created 18 months ago and I'm still sorting it out.
 
dsd311,
Your points are spot on, especially with regard to documentation. Also, my regards with respect to that project you're working on. :p


When I said that DMS software is a pain and it usually costs more than it's worth; I meant that from both an I.T. & Info Management perspective - it's not always 'working with the vendor'. Sometimes (and especially in this particular sector), there's just poorly developed and all-round terrible software out there. They're pushed with nearly every marketing gimmick conceivable, and clients just don't know better.


So, my $0.02: Do your homework.
Information is pretty hard to gather sometimes with regard to the actual type of software - so request everything you can get your hands on. Documentation, demonstrations, trials, hell - get yourself in contact with an organization that actually uses it and hear what they have to say. ;)
 
Jess

I agree with you completely. There are tons of poorly written and terrible software, most of which seems to plague the DMS space. You don't happen to work in the public sector do you?

The agency I work for has several DMS style products for various departments.
 
dsd311 said:
If you spend the time up front to document the business process and work with the vendor of any product you can create a pretty seamless workflow.

Definitely spend the time up front to document the business process and create a workflow for each aspect you want the product to cover. I inherited a project that had no business process and no workflow created 18 months ago and I'm still sorting it out.
Click to expand...

QFT.

I'm on month 4 of your same dilemma. They don't want to do ANYTHING with the system, even create users, until the system is fully operational. They don't want to evaluate it until all the documents are imported. Management approved the software without evaluating it!
 
I too have experienced some crazy meltdowns in this sector. When I was consulting I acquired several good clients by helping dig them out from heaps of crap piled on by terrible DMS companies.

I probably could have made a great living consulting in this sector but it was not worth always coming in after they've got a half-deployed, excessively expensive, totally broken DMS's. They're usually not very happy for months.

The best warning I can give you; stay away from IKON. Worst $60k cluster f*** I've ever seen (IKON's price, less some of the hardware!). The database software was ~15 years old, looked like it was written by a 12 year old, purposefully ruined your files (saved them with an arbitrary relabeled/obfuscated name so you could never recover them without their program), wasn't able to do 80% of what the sales told my client it could/would (the installing tech took me aside one day during training and said - "I'm not sure what these people were told but our program can not do any of what they want - all our product can do is document archival, not full on management"), forced an upgrade to Active Directory on the network and left it at absolute default settings (they needed LDAP, yet converted the entire network over to a broken AD install which "they have no specialty in"), and they pushed this stupid kiosk that goes with your scanner. The kiosk was a good 5x slower to use than a standard computer to input scanned documents in their system. Between costs to deploy, my time cleaning up, and lost revenues (training, trying to use this system and having 100% of the time be wasted, etc) it cost the client $100's of thousands to pick the wrong vendor.

In all, I made out great... tons of work cleaning up their mess and finding a vendor that could meet the clients needs. The moral though, DMS has a lot of shady vendors; choose carefully.
 
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dsd311 said:
Jess

I agree with you completely. There are tons of poorly written and terrible software, most of which seems to plague the DMS space. You don't happen to work in the public sector do you?

The agency I work for has several DMS style products for various departments.
Click to expand...

I work for a private sector info management company. Usually we're hired to clean up the mess. :p



obrith said:
I too have experienced some crazy meltdowns in this sector. When I was consulting I acquired several good clients by helping dig them out from heaps of crap piled on by terrible DMS companies.

I probably could have made a great living consulting in this sector but it was not worth always coming in after they've got a half-deployed, excessively expensive, totally broken DMS's. They're usually not very happy for months.

The best warning I can give you; stay away from IKON. Worst $60k cluster f*** I've ever seen (IKON's price, less some of the hardware!). The database software was ~15 years old, looked like it was written by a 12 year old, purposefully ruined your files (saved them with an arbitrary relabeled/obfuscated name so you could never recover them without their program), wasn't able to do 80% of what the sales told my client it could/would (the installing tech took me aside one day during training and said - "I'm not sure what these people were told but our program can not do any of what they want - all our product can do is document archival, not full on management"), forced an upgrade to Active Directory on the network and left it at absolute default settings (they needed LDAP, yet converted the entire network over to a broken AD install which "they have no specialty in"), and they pushed this stupid kiosk that goes with your scanner. The kiosk was a good 5x slower to use than a standard computer to input scanned documents in their system. Between costs to deploy, my time cleaning up, and lost revenues (training, trying to use this system and having 100% of the time be wasted, etc) it cost the client $100's of thousands to pick the wrong vendor.

In all, I made out great... tons of work cleaning up their mess and finding a vendor that could meet the clients needs. The moral though, DMS has a lot of shady vendors; choose carefully.
Click to expand...

Great piece of advice there obrith - I remember a 5K DMS software being built on Access. I was on the floor with belly aching laughter. :eek:

I've heard, and recently saw a similar incident to yours. About 200k for a certain DMS company that has its software name starting with with 'V'. Client did a complete overhaul of their existing network. Brand-spanking new equipment, software - the works. Probably ran about $600~700K in all.

They came in, installed the software and general setup - and it worked, for about a week. Plagued with connectivity issues, lost files and god knows what else. Company had their entire network checked and rechecked by their internal IT staff and external consultants. Configuration settings for the software checked, checked again and reviewed about a dozen times. Everything is correct, and everything should be working. :rolleyes:

Up to this day (probably more than three months by now) - the respectable, reliable DMS company can't send someone out. The client performing the troubleshooting for them (nothing but 'vague guidance' according to the IT admin) and additionally sending documentation on attempts and changes. No input or even attempt to make good on their support contract.



People may laugh at how funny a matter this is - and yes, sometimes you can't help but find humour in it all. But two things are made clear - the people in charge authorize a lot of money without doing any research themselves. IT gets blamed, RM gets blamed and whoever else stuck their head out for the upgrade gets blamed.
 
-Jess- said:
People may laugh at how funny a matter this is - and yes, sometimes you can't help but find humour in it all. But two things are made clear - the people in charge authorize a lot of money without doing any research themselves. IT gets blamed, RM gets blamed and whoever else stuck their head out for the upgrade gets blamed.
Click to expand...

Also sad is the wasted time of employees and the effect on morale.. try and come into that business a few months or a year later and launch something to improve things and see the resistance you get.
 
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions. We are still evaluating solutions, and I have CDW working with some of the "higher end" vendors to see if they have a solution. Ater digging into this all week, it appears I have 2 issues:

1) Nothing integrates with our internal business system (ADP)
2) Our a/p department needs to completly overhaul the workflow

It is going to be a real change of culture going from making copies & fed-ex'ing documents to scanning them in and throwing them in the garbage. You should have seen the looks on some faces when it came out in a meeting.

I'm really looking hard at FileBound right now, as they are only about $10k (no hardware). I'm goingt to try and get a couple possible solutions at different price levels to what the heck the difference actually is. They all look remarkably the same.
 
jtr8178 - the OnBase product that I mentioned does have a piece called "App Enabler" that will integrate with pretty much everything. The only downside is the cost which may be able to be supplemented by grants depending on what sector your business is in.
 
What about small business programs? Any good solution with support for laptops that travel into the field?
 
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