The Salmon Companies, a transportation partner of the United States Postal Service, started using DocuWare to merge its business processes with those of a company it acquired resulting in an efficient, flexible, digital accounting workflow. The accounting process automation improved employee productivity, reduced costs and secured information.

Founded in 1946 for hauling a load of mail for the United States Postal Service (USPS), the Salmon Companies have expanded from a regional transportation company to a key supplier for the USPS. The company has 30 locations and 10 branch offices throughout the United States. Their fleet of 1,500 trucks transport mail throughout almost every state in the nation. Throughout their growth they have focused on using technology to better manage their business and operating costs to achieve their mission of delivering the mail for the USPS “safely on time, every time.”

Requirements

A number of years ago, Salmon acquired a company that used DocuWare. As the two companies merged their processes, Salmon decided to speak with an Authorized DocuWare Partner to see how they could better leverage this technology to fit their unique business needs. Salmon has only one customer, the US government, and fitting the accounting and business process to the government’s expectations is a top priority.

Solution

Authorized DocuWare Partner, Business World, worked with Salmon to identify the needs and inefficiencies in their existing accounting process. They worked with Salmon to build a custom workflow based on amount and location. Salmon loves DocuWare’s modular nature which enables them to easily modify and change business processes to meet their evolving needs. The staff was involved in the creation of the business workflow and Salmon tweaked processes based on employee feedback. The workflow process is based on a system of rules and electronic stamps that route a document through the workflow.

“We have only one customer and we have to mold our system to fit the client; our business is a little bit of a different animal that way. DocuWare’s flexibility allows us to not only work through our custom processes, but drives us to consider more effective and efficient means to an end,” said Steve Christian, Director of IT.

Salmon processes more than 15,000 documents a month in their accounts payable processes. Most indexing is automated with DocuWare’s Intelligent Indexing feature and the solution is integrated with the company’s Microsoft Dynamics Great Plains accounting system, making it a holistic approach to servicing their client.

Benefits

Employee productivity has gone way up now that processes are fast and efficient. Salmon has lowered costs by eliminating the printing of multiple copies of a document and sped up document processing time. Filing errors have been eliminated and additional savings are realized by not having to pay to store paper documents in an offsite facility.

DocuWare has expanded to the Human Resources and Safety departments to securely store confidential information and retain documents with long retention schedules, such as employee files, benefits, discipline, deductions, 401K and driver safety documents.

Conclusion

“If we have a problem we always look to see how DocuWare can fix it. We are constantly reviewing our processes and looking for ways we can improve. DocuWare’s modular nature is a good fit for us,” Christian said.

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