Children's Home Society of Florida

DocuPhase Case Study

Industry
Non-profit
Department
Accounting
Solution
AP Automation
& Cloud Hosting

The Challenge

Children’s Home Society of Florida was founded in November of 1902, with the mission to “find ‘families’ for kids who had no place else to go.” With the passing years, CHS has grown and had to adapt to meet the changing needs of what it takes to protect and care for the children of Florida, as well as what those changing needs mean with regard to how the organization runs.

One area of the organization that needed to evolve was Accounts Payable; CHS began the evolution by implementing a new ERP solution (NetSuite) to improve AP-related tasks. However, in doing so, they found that their existing Document Management System (DMS) could not integrate with NetSuite. This resulted in spending more time entering and managing data, as well as the involvement of more staff members leading to increasing, costly errors and time.

Wanting to find a way to increase efficiency without increasing headcount, Shane Owens, the Financial Systems Manager at CHS was tasked with finding a solution. The first need identified was finding an alternative to the existing Document Management System – one that would allow integration with NetSuite.

After spending several months looking carefully at a variety of Accounts Payable Automation systems, Shane recognized that DocuPhase had the best layout, the simplest start-to-finish solution for their purposes, and the integration that they needed – overall, the best fit for the needs of CHS.

Results at a Glance

Eliminated the need to duplicate documents in a multitude of filing locations.

Streamlined processes to take advantage of automating known approval rules.

Transformed paper AP methods into completely electronic processes.

"Processes can be easily converted and managed directly within DocuPhase and provide better accountability and management throughout the organization."

SHANE OWENS Financial Systems Manager, CHS

The Solution

The plan was to implement DocuPhase in Accounts Payable first, and then over time, other areas of Accounting and Finance would be included. Eventually, DocuPhase would roll out for the automation of Expense Reports, Accounts Receivable, Journal Entries, Contract Management, and Payroll. With organization-wide adoption, CHS would benefit from a number of advantages provided by DocuPhase:

  • Prevention of lost or missed documents/information
  • Ensured compliance through the use of business rules, making sure the right documents are seen by the right person, at the right time
  • Elimination of errors made during manual data entry
  • Better use of time and effort previously used to manually enter data and route documents
  • Single-source data management (via the DocuPhase and NetSuite integration) for people on-site and in the field to sync and share the same information
  • Centralized and searchable document storage for faster and easier document access

Children's Home also opted for hosting DocuPhase in the cloud using Amazon Web Services (AWS). By choosing to host their DocuPhase solution in the cloud, CHS was able to accelerate and simplify their implementation. As an added benefit, CHS now has no need for a dedicated maintenance team to manage DocuPhase hardware or perform OS updates. Hosting DocuPhase with AWS also eliminated the need to purchase additional hardware.

The Results

By adding the DocuPhase platform via AWS to their existing complex business system, CHS attained more than just their original goals of getting more done, faster, without having to add staff. They also have the ability to see the status of any single item, as well as access to reliable data with instant knowledge of any issues for faster resolution – all while reducing costs and improving security. Moreover, as a nonprofit agency, CHS is subject to frequent audits; they have found that the visibility and transparency provided by DocuPhase alleviates many of the pain points, and reduces the overall time and energy spent to conduct the audits.

As CHS continues to expand its services, DocuPhase will continue to provide vast benefits that give CHS the ability to spend less time and effort on everyday administrative tasks, providing them with the chance to focus on their objective: benefitting the children and families of Florida, as it has for over a century.