State Industrial Products Cleans Up Document Processing with Esker DeliveryWare

State Industrial Products Cleans Up Document Processing with Esker DeliveryWare

SAP customer automates delivery of customer billing and supply chain documents, consolidates faxing systems.

Madison, WI (PRWEB) February 2, 2009 - Esker (http://www.esker.com), the leader in document process automation solutions, announced today that State Industrial Products, a 98-year-old company with an established reputation in the maintenance and cleaning, repair and operations markets, has implemented Esker DeliveryWare (http://www.esker.com) to automate outbound delivery of invoices, collection letters and purchasing documents as well as inbound fax documents. State Industrial Products expects to cut the number of invoices it sends via postal mail by 50% while gaining bandwidth to send higher volumes of other documents electronically and reduce DSO.

Prior to implementation of Esker DeliveryWare, State Industrial Products had recognized potential for significant cost reductions and efficiency gains by addressing challenges associated with mailing all of its invoices via USPS, using different solutions for different fax processes, having virtually no bulk/automated email communications with its customers, and having contact information spread across multiple systems. State Industrial Products processes 1,000-1,500 invoices and 700-800 collection letters daily in addition to sending approximately 5,000 purchase orders and other fax documents per month from its SAP solution and from the desktop. The company also receives around 4,500 inbound faxes per month.

"We batch-printed the invoices every night in-house," recalled Norbert Schmitt, Manager of Application Services at State Industrial Products. "An operator would come in and print invoices at 2:00 a.m. and give them to our in-house mail room the next morning. Then they would sort and stuff them and give them to a mail house." The collection letters were faxed out of the company's GetPaid solution via a fax server solution that was no longer supported, and other outbound faxes were sent through a paid service. Another paid service handled fax-to-email processing of the inbound faxes.

E-invoicing was the original driver for the project. "The business came to me and asked if we could fax or email our invoices to customers," said Schmitt. "I knew I could fax and email in SAP, but the problem was how to make sure that the invoices are accurately delivered to customers."

After initially planning to develop a custom solution in-house, Schmitt saw Esker DeliveryWare at an SAP TechEd event. Today, Esker DeliveryWare rules-based automation enables State Industrial Products to send invoices via email or fax and know their status. If an email or fax fails due to incorrect address or fax number, then Esker DeliveryWare automatically determines an alternate method of communication. Invoices that don't go through via email or fax are automatically transmitted to Esker-hosted production facilities where the documents are prepared and mailed to recipients.

Esker DeliveryWare (http://www.esker.com) also handles the SAP and desktop faxing. Processing of collection letters has been reduced from up to 12 hours to 1-2 hours, and faxes go out from the SAP application via SAPconnect using SAP customer master data. As a result of more seamless integration, collection letters get out sooner with web-based visibility to manage contact information. On-demand faxing services with Esker DeliveryWare provide overflow processing if the outbound queue is full. State Industrial Products also leverages Esker DeliveryWare for inbound fax-to-email service.

"State Industrial Products is like many of the SAP customers we work with in that they had accumulated a lot of document processing technology over the years," said Steve Smith, VP of Sales and Marketing at Esker. "For a company like State Industrial that makes improving its systems a real priority, an infrastructure with multiple point-to-point solutions eventually becomes too much of a barrier -- especially when the various technologies are outdated or not well-integrated with the SAP application. The ideal situation is to have a single tool that gets the right documents to the right people with the right technology, and helps manage the delivery information. And if they can get billing documents to customers a few days sooner, they can get payment that much faster."

According to Schmitt, "We got rid of our stuffing machine and the maintenance, and we got rid of a printer that we don't need anymore, so there have been significant cost savings on the hardware side." Other benefits include improved quality control for multiple-page invoices that previously had to be processed separately, and visibility into when documents went out. Esker DeliveryWare also enables Schmitt to create daily and weekly reports on invoices sent, which he distributes to various recipient groups within the company.

State Industrial Products' future plans for Esker DeliveryWare include a portal where customers can self-maintain their communication preferences, update contact information, and retrieve invoices. The customer portal will also provide confirmation that invoices have been received. Esker DeliveryWare will also be rolled out to up to 500 handheld devices with the company's SFA application, enabling State Industrial Products sales representatives to request invoice copies and send order confirmations and quotes via fax or email.

About State Industrial Products

State Industrial Products has an established reputation in the maintenance and cleaning, repair and operations markets. The company is committed to enhancing building environments and improving equipment productivity. All around North America, State Industrial's products are hard at work...in manufacturing plants, universities and schools, hotels, restaurants, health care facilities, government, industrial, and commercial facilities. The company boasts thousands of products, ranging from air fresheners to welding supplies, from cleaners and lubricants to nuts and bolts. Its customer base ranges from schools to Fortune 500 companies.

About Esker (http://www.esker.com)

Esker is a recognized leader in helping organizations eliminate manual processes, gain process visibility and control, and reduce the use of paper by automating the flow of documents into, within and out of the organization. With patented document delivery automation software and hosted document delivery services, Esker offers a total solution to automate every phase and every type of business information exchange. Customers achieve significant and immediate operational efficiencies, cost savings and measurable ROI in as little as three to six months. Founded in 1985, Esker operates globally with more than 80,000 customers and millions of licensed users worldwide. Esker has global headquarters in Lyon, France and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, visit www.esker.com.

© 2009 Esker S.A. All rights reserved. Esker and the Esker logo are registered trademarks of Esker S.A. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Corporate Contact:

Renee Thomas

Esker, Inc.

Tel: 608.828.6140

Gina Lanzillotta

Esker, Inc.

Tel: 608.828.6141

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Contact Information Renee Thomas

Esker Inc.

http://www.esker.com

608-828-6140

Gina Lanzillotta

Esker Inc.

http://www.esker.com

608-828-6141