A nonprofit aid organization, AVANCE (Uh-vahn-say) digitizes its operations for improved efficiency and real time finance tracking. The freed up physical space from reduced file cabinets allowed restructuring the office for social distancing
AVANCE operates early childhood and family education centers and has used DocuWare to automate processes such as purchasing and funds tracking to assist its Finance and HR teams.
The need to move away from paper-based processing
AVANCE operates about 30 early childhood education facilities for children under the age of five in San Antonio and beyond, enabling their parents to learn infant care and other parenting skills, earn their high school diplomas, attend professional training or attain employment.
The daycare centers need to buy a gamut of supplies from formula to diapers to furniture – this generates many purchase orders. Prior to DocuWare, the company relied on paper purchase orders, which made the approval and acquisition process slow and cumbersome. “We were looking to move away from paper into an electronic system,” says Michelle Hyde, Chief Financial Officer at AVANCE.
The benefits of digitizing
Digitizing sped up purchasing approvals and data entry. Prior to DocuWare, staff filled out paper purchase order forms that were sent for approval via interoffice mail or by FedEx. “We used to have paper Purchase Order (P.O.) books, which we would issue to each department and they would prepare the paper purchase orders,” Hyde recalls. Now requestors fill out electronic purchase order forms via a web link and these are submitted instantly. Digitizing also reduced manual data input, saving time.
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