Mengali Accountancy

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Mengali Accountancy, an environmentally conscious accounting firm in Northern California, implemented DocuWare to streamline their work processes and become a paperless office. Since implementing the solution, the firm has improved employee accountability, gained valuable tools for monitoring its workflow, streamlined audits and strengthened its bottom line, while preserving ecology and eliminating paper usage
Country: USA
Industry: Finance/Banking/Insurance
Application: Accounting, Customer Services, Corporate-wide, Records Management, Workflow

Mengali Accountancy (MA) provides expertise in accounting, financial management and tax services. They specialize in handling outsourced accounting services for small businesses in the real estate and construction industry throughout Northern California.

Solution Requirements

Documents

With many different types of accounts, Mengali Accountancy handles a high volume of transactional processing for their clients. Documents range from accounts payable invoices, bank statements, loan statements, credit card statements and more. The company receives over 200 documents each day, primarily through the mail; although some information is received via fax and e-mail as well.

Work Process

Prior to implementing DocuWare, work was divided among the staff by client, regardless of whether the task was a basic transaction or more complex. It was difficult for the company to fully utilize their senior accountants because dividing the work by anything other than client was too difficult in their paper-intensive environment.

The company’s central filing room is located in the middle of the office. Documentation was filed manually and like any manual filing system, was limited by the inevitable human error. With specific storage guidelines and similar client account numbers, mistakes were easy to make. Filing documents accurately was time consuming but a business critical task for every employee in the company.

Responding to document audit requests, for example, for real estate investment pools - where millions of dollars have been invested - always seemed to be a stressful, time intensive, difficult process that could not often be given to an assistant to complete, due to the level of document complex-ity. With various audits occurring year round, the accounting firm needed a better way to manage and retrieve information.

Solution Requirements

Located in an environmentally progressive area of the U.S. where green initiatives are part of the business atmosphere, and wanting a better way to facilitate their audit and other business processes, Mengali Accountancy decided to go green and implement an integrated electronic document management (EDM) system.

“We’ve always recycled, but we wanted to rethink our business model and find a system that avoided the need to even create paper documents. That’s the direction we would like to take our electronic document management system – receive all of our information electronically,” said Renee Mengali, owner and principal of Mengali Accountancy.

After reviewing five different products, Mengali Accountancy chose to implement DocuWare because of its indexing capabilities, integrated workflow features and low total cost of ownership (TCO).

Solution

Authorized DocuWare Partner, Scott Technology Group, implemented Mengali’s DocuWare document management solution. Utilizing the company’s existing Savin SPF multi-functional device, documents are scanned and electronically stamped as Received. The Received stamp allows the DocuWare Coordinator, using drop down select lists, to fill in the date, client name and other index information. These index terms route each document to the appropriate employee based on a predetermined workflow. Employees receive their documents in a CONTENT-FOLDER (an electronic folder) on their desktop. Documents are then further routed through the process using various electronic stamps by the employees. By using drop down select lists, the Coordinator efficiently and accurately begins the workflow process. The electronic stamps also allow for individual employee accountability by recording who performed each step in the workflow process.

“My employees and I really like the electronic stamp feature. We can capture our internal communications and processes using electronic stamps on a digital layer while still preserving the integrity of the original document: a feature we find very useful during audits,” said Mengali.

The DocuWare Coordinator spends four hours a day scanning and indexing new documents.
Faxes and e-mail attachments no longer need to be printed; they are automatically imported into DocuWare to await indexing. As a document moves through the workflow and index information is added through the use of stamps, the document is accurately electronically filed, eliminating the mundane task of filing and refiling.

The Benefits in Detail 

User Benefits

Today, paper is no longer moving around the office. The staff has caught on to DocuWare and is excited to find documents digitally and eliminate manual filing duties. Electronic stamps and CONTENT-FOLDERs have given each employee more accountability and the tools they need to monitor their own work load.

“Our product is our service and ev-erything we do is now driven by our DocuWare workflow. As the principal of the company I can keep an eye on everyone’s work load. DocuWare is a great workload management tool, especially for a small company,” said Mengali.

The benefits of implementing DocuWare were immediate, especially concerning document retrieval. For most of Mengali’s clients, the firm acts as an offsite accounting department so it constantly receives requests for copies of source documents. Today with DocuWare, the staff can electronically search for the document from their desktop and e-mail it while still on the phone, improving customer service and efficiency. 

Corporate Benefits

Mengali Accountancy processes accounts payable, but their clients sign and authorize their own checks. In the past, MA would create a batch of checks to be signed and provided the client with a packet of backup source documents explaining the checks. MA was not comfortable allowing source documentation to leave the building and following up with the client to make sure the source documents were returned. Today, checks are prepared for signature and delivered to the client without paper backup. Backup documentation is sent by e-mail, and never leaves Mengali’s office, simplifying workflow for both Mengali and their clients.

With DocuWare, the company’s workflow is now divided by both document type and client to better match the skill set of each employee. This allows the company to gain substantial efficiencies in its salary expense by assigning entry-level staff more of the basic transactional processing and providing the senior accountants with more complex tasks that match their education and training.

“As a self admitted control freak, DocuWare helped me define and formalize my company’s workflow. Through the use of CONTENT-FOLDERs I can get a quick picture of my business pipeline at any given time, this really helps me to make better use of my employees and their skills.”

Since going paperless, Mengali has added three new clients without adding staff, a goal that would have been impossible to meet under the old paper-based system. Mengali Accountancy consistently focuses on how to improve their work processes as well as their client’s work processes. Within a year Mengali Accountancy plans to expand their DocuWare solution to give their clients secure online self-serve access to source documentation. The firm will employ a DocuWare Coordinator to not only monitor the scanning of documentation, but also work with each client individually to move them toward EDM and providing MA with purely electronic files. This commitment to their client’s success is part of what drives success in Mengali Accountancy.

“The construction industry as a whole is slow to adopt new technology, but our clients are moving toward sending us digital documentation, because they’ve seen the security and access advantages of working with purely electronic information,” said Mengali.

Implementing DocuWare has assisted Mengali Accountancy in their mission of providing professional, responsive and quality service to their clients.