DocFinity’s origin story sounds familiar to those of us who live in the world of tech startups. “We started with one software developer and a dream to make life better for businesses everywhere,” Jim Hopkins, Assistant VP of product development says. From there, their business idea quickly took root and grew. Its main premise – to help companies move from paper to electronic filing and automatic processing – has revolutionized its clients.
Turning paper into extra time
“DocFinity® makes whatever you do more effective and efficient,” Hopkins says. “It does this by storing all your documents in a central electronic repository so you can eliminate most of your paper and find things easily. But the real power is using BPM (Business Process Management) to automate your processes and ensure things are done correctly and in a timely fashion.”
For example, a university can use DocFinity® for their student admissions process. By using DocFinity®, all student records will be organized and kept together, and any needed paperwork will be automatically requested based on an existing schedule, and procured electronically. Once this information is gathered, DocFinity® routes the appropriate information to the people who need to review or approve.
Michigan Millers Mutual Insurance Company uses DocFinity® to store all their documents and manage their claims processing. Once they scanned in their documents, the time to find a file went from three days of searching through file cabinets to 30 seconds. The money they saved in storage fees and managing paper more than paid for DocFinity®. They were also able to automate the process of preparing and sending correspondence to their clients, reducing that process from two hours to three minutes.
In 2005, State College Area School District teamed up with DocFinity. At the time, they had approximately 1500 faculty and staff to serve their student body, and one difficulty that the school district was experiencing was an accumulation of their bi-monthly payroll reports. Their paper-based system was extremely inefficient.
SCASD had to print out a large number of payroll reports—ten reports per payroll period. The size and number of reports was constant regardless of whether the school district was printing payroll information for 1500 employees or for one. Before they implemented electronic archiving, their process involved printing the reports on paper, then either archiving or shredding them. Each incidence of printing used an entire ream of paper, which subsequently took hours to manually feed reports into a shredder that didn’t require archiving.
SCASD took steps to address and resolve their paper buildup. Initially they had considered renting an offsite physical storage facility to store their paper reports. After evaluating their options, they decided to store and retrieve their information electronically using the DocFinity® software suite.
DocFinity’s document management software was a logical choice, since it provided instant access to information through any Web browser. It also addressed concerns about disaster recovery and compliance with federal regulations. Business Manager Dennis Younkin recommended implementing DocFinity in Payroll as a prototype, then expanding electronic document management throughout the district.
The end result: The accounting and business offices at SCASD were delighted with the results of the implementation. Employees are particularly relieved that they no longer have to waste time and paper; shredding an entire ream (fed into the machine two pages at a time) for payroll reports is now a thing of the past. “DocFinity saves us time, which equates to saving money,” Younkin said.
Growing into new space
As DocFinity has partnered with companies to understand exactly what they need and then work with them to create a custom solution to move them from paper to automation, their business has grown exponentially. In the years following the ‘developer and a dream’ moment, the software evolved into a full blown document management offering. Over the years they have continued to add features, modules, and capabilities until they had a full Electronic Content Management (ECM) suite, including Business Process Management (BPM) and Electronic Records Management (ERM) serving universities, schools and businesses, as well as state and local governments.
As the product grew and the company became a division of Companion Data Services (CDS), they saw the need to upgrade their facility in Oakwood Center, a class B office space behind the Texas Roadhouse. “It previously stored stamps,” Hopkins says, “so there were very few windows.”
They moved to Innovation Park and found their new space much better suited to their team. “We took over a portion of the old Schoolwires space which was already furnished for software development,” Hopkins says. “It was a pretty easy renovation to make it ours. We are really enjoying the increase in natural light.”
Their team enjoys the other amenities of the park as well. “The Penn Stater is a great place for visitors to stay when they come to town with easy access to the airport. Being able to walk there for lunch has also been nice,” he says. He’s also impressed with the maintenance of the park and the management of the building and says it’s clear that the park takes great pride in its facilities and environment.
What’s next
DocFinity-CDS continues to grow and thrive in their new space. “We continue to adapt our product to meet current and future client needs,” Hopkins says. “We have focused on the education market in the last few years and have very happy customers from public and private schools to top universities. We recently won placement on several state sponsored purchasing lists and have seen growth in state schools, as well as state and local government agencies as a result.”
Their latest feature, the Self-Service Gateway, allows secure access to specific documents, processes and forms by people outside of an organization. This allows a university to share student records and information with their whole student body. It allows taxpayers to access their latest information from their state’s web portal or a customer of any business to review invoices, orders, or other information easily without having to understand or license DocFinity® themselves. They see this product as a way to open up many new markets and capabilities for customers, making DocFinity® even more valuable.
For more visit: www.docfinity.com