Wholesaler cuts error costs by 80 percent

The German wholesale company Okle has automated its paper receipt and fax order processes to improve customer service and reduce costs caused by manual errors.

Okle receives about 500 paper receipts per day and 50 fax orders per week. Previously, information was entered manually into an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The company wanted a solution that would allow both incoming paper receipts and fax orders to be delivered directly into the ERP system, and one that would trigger automatic order confirmations and credit memos to suppliers and customers.

Okle chose a solution that combines TOPCALL FaxConnect for Orders from DICOM Group with Ascent Capture and VirtualReScan technology from Kofax, a DICOM Group company. Ascent Capture automatically collects the receipts; turns them into accurate, retrievable information; and delivers the information into the ERP system. VirtualReScan technology was selected to improve image quality and optical character recognition (OCR) accuracy. TOPCALL FaxConnect for Orders automatically captures incoming fax purchase orders and transfers preliminary order data to the ERP system, enabling the automatic communication of order confirmations and other customer-specific notices, DICOM Group recently reported in a news release.

"We were amazed how quickly the solutions were integrated with our ERP system and how promptly we could see tremendous results," says Reiner Sailer, a member of the management team of Okle. "The implementation has speeded up the workflow and lowered error rates significantly, at the same time reducing costs associated with manual errors by 80 percent. In addition, our former fax traffic communication problems have now been eliminated, which clearly takes some of the workload off our employees."