Document Management for Non-Profit

Goodwill Industries of Tulsa understands the importance of helping others in their employment needs and difficulties. They provide jobs, career training, and support services to people with disabilities and other barriers of employment. In doing so, Goodwill Industries has helped employ the people of Eastern Oklahoma and Southwest Missouri since their beginning in 1927.

Aiding thousands with their employment needs is strenuous enough, but even more so when internal procedures are not running as smoothly as possible. Goodwill Industries of Tulsa was struggling with piles of paperwork to file – specifically checks and invoices – plus poor document retrieval capabilities. If someone needed to search for and find an old document, they would have to dig through numerous boxes for that one piece of paper. And as a growing company that’s been around for a long time, you can imagine all of the checks they need to cut, and invoices they need to pay.

All of these tedious tasks were costing time and money, preventing Goodwill of Tulsa from effectively helping their growing team of new hires. What they really needed to be more efficient was a proper filing system where they could search and retrieve documents quickly. Thanks to Square 9’s enterprise content management (ECM) software, GlobalSearch, Goodwill Industries of Tulsa found the perfect solution to their paper based problems.

In their Accounts Payable department, Goodwill of Tulsa runs hundreds of checks at a time by scanning the check stubs and other attached documentation. Once scanned, the search functionality in GlobalSearch allows them to search within different fields of the document such as check number, date, vendor ID, etc. and find other documents of similar status by simply typing in keywords.

Filing paperwork was not a favorable task of the employees at Goodwill Industries, as it was extremely time consuming and interfered with other daily assignments. However, with the adoption of GlobalSearch, the Accounts Payable department has eliminated one hour every day, equating to 5 hours a week in time savings! By upgrading to a digital filing system, the Accounts Payable staff can now spend less time focusing on paperwork, and more time on value-adding activities.

After implementing GlobalSearch ECM, Goodwill Industries of Tulsa could not be happier with the results. They are now exploring the option of expanding their GlobalSearch installation to the Human Resources department for efficient digital filing and instant search and retrieval of employee documentation. With over 85 years of experience providing others with job training and services to people with disabilities, there is no doubt that GlobalSearch will support and advance their efforts even further. It looks like Goodwill Industries of Tulsa has finally reached the end of inefficient document management!

For more information on Goodwill Industries of Tulsa, please visit www.goodwilltulsa.org.

Interview: Melinda Johnston, Executive Assistant, Goodwill Industries of Tulsa

Q: What challenges influenced you to look for a document management solution?

Melinda Johnston: The main reason why I went looking for a document management solution was to get rid of the growing piles of paperwork which I constantly had to search through. The accounting department keeps current year and previous year paperwork in file cabinets while other paperwork is kept in boxes in the storage room for seven years. So, if I needed a file, I would have to go digging through boxes to find it and that was aggravating.

How have your processes changed since implementing GlobalSearch?

Johnston: I no longer deal with huge piles of paperwork. All I have to do now since using GlobalSearch is scan them quickly to upload them digitally so I can file and search within the documents. I hated the difficult task of filing year’s’ worth of paperwork and would always put it off. With GlobalSearch, this process is so simple and time saving.

Are you planning to expand your use of Square 9’s solutions?

Johnston: We are exploring the possibility of implementing GlobalSearch into our Human Resources department to help us with managing our personnel files. We are a very paper-intensive business so we are taking small steps with our paperless initiatives. We decided to start with Accounts Payable and it is going very well, so we are exploring taking the next step to Human Resources. Additionally, we use Microsoft Dynamics and would like to take advantage of GlobalSearch’s integration capabilities in the near future.

Would you recommend GlobalSearch and why?

Johnston: I would absolutely recommend GlobalSearch, I love it! It is a huge time saver and so easy to use. When my co-workers come to me and ask to pull an invoice, I quickly type in my keyword to search for the document and it immediately pops up, then I email it to them within a few short minutes. I love how this product is so fast and efficient with a quick push of a button; it does what I need it to do!