As the End of the Year Approaches, Here's Straight Talk on Imaging Software Decisions

By David Guilbault, Director, Customer and ISV Development, ImageTag

Read this article at MSDynamicsWorld.com

The end of the year brings with it a number of budget-related decisions at many companies. So I thought I'd try to answer the typical questions we get from clients and prospects.

Okay, I have some year-end capital - can I really implement an imaging system this year (and see real benefits in 2010)?

In a word: YES. In fact this could be my shortest article yet. Go forth and spend that money! (However, as a matter of full disclosure, since I'm with a document imaging vendor, you should take my exuberance with a grain of salt.)

Seriously, if you have funds and are looking for a good place to spend them, document imaging as an added investment to your Microsoft Dynamics environment can deliver results almost immediately.

Here are four quick examples:

Manual invoice handling costs your organization money every day. How many times per day does your staff retrieve an invoice from the filing cabinet? Worse, who puts it back?
Your supplier missed an item from their delivery. Can you retrieve the packing slip to compare to the invoice and the purchase order?
If you were audited and had to provide a list of documents that were accessed, with the specifics of when and by whom, could you?
Disaster Recovery best practice has driven you to place copies of your transaction data off-site, but is that file cabinet backed up?

Okay, I get it. But is there enough time to buy and implement a system before the end of the year?

Yes. Modern imaging systems are much less of a systems integration project than in earlier years. Look for the distributed solutions that leverage your digital copier infrastructure and embed within your Microsoft Dynamics ERP client software. This enables users to continue to do what they do today without learning new scanning equipment, software or processes.

Focus on solutions that you can imagine your users adopting. The benefits to your organization won't occur unless your workers actually use the solution. If you can't see this in the first product demonstration, move on.

You gave me a checklist a few months ago to use when shopping for an imaging solution for my Microsoft Dynamics environment. What were they again?

I outlined ten criteria that act as guidelines to insure that your requirements are defined during the buying process.

Work inside Microsoft Dynamics GP, NAV or AX within the familiar screens employees use every day
Link paper or electronic documents automatically to a transaction at the point of receipt
Allow batch scanning where and when it's convenient, including from a digital copier
Manage multiple-page documents whether in paper or electronic formats such as email, Word, or PDF
Enable quality control checks to automatically alert users of a missing a document or lost page
Allow searching by transaction-related data or by content within the document
Not create more paper by requiring cover sheets but allowing them where useful
Enable or limit shared access by authorized personnel
Provide a document storage repository and/or support your SharePoint repository
Fit your organization's rules for records management and compliance

I have some money, not unlimited funds. How much will I have to spend?

Distributed solutions leverage a lot of what you already own. This advantage translates into a lower entry cost for imaging than a few years ago. Almost all solutions count users, so you have to as well in order to estimate a price. The focus of the examples in my articles has been the payables process simply because of the high percentage of the documents arriving in paper form. But don't forget your sales order process when determining the number of users you'll need.

You can expect to pay $7-$8K for a three-user system from the leading vendors in this category. Ten users will likely drive up that price by two-to-three times. This amount usually represents the software portion although some vendors actually supply server hardware in the package. When they don't, remember that image processing is CPU-intensive so most vendors will want a dedicated server so be sure to take that into account.

Support and maintenance is required and is most often calculated based upon the cost of the system. Rates range from 18 to 22%.

Services to implement the solution round out the investment. Be sure to ask for a firm figure on this portion of quote. Your vendor should be able to define the tasks required to get you going ahead of time rather than a pay-as-you-go approach.

You've discussed buying a distributed solution. I've read your articles and I need a centralized solution to meet my needs.

Centralized solutions in general take longer to implement because they strive to automate some (or all) of the paper processing. If you have an existing scanning department in your organization, you are in good position to get started. One tip: put off some measure of the automation until phase two. Getting your documents digital will likely provide the most immediate return, i.e. access, compliance and recovery.

Will I get a good deal if I buy now?

Many software companies run their operations on a calendar year basis. This provides your company with a great opportunity for savings because there are good deals out there. And you would be surprised how responsive software vendors are at this time of year.

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About the Author:
David Guilbault is Director, Customer and ISV Development for ImageTag, where he is responsible for managing customer and partner relationships, as well as insuring their success with their KwikTag solution. Previously, David headed Product Management at ImageTag, where he was instrumental in transforming a patented idea into a software platform that is applicable to every document, user and business. Prior to joining ImageTag, David spent eight years with Xerox. This tenure gave him an inherent knowledge of documents and their importance to an organization. With more than two decades in technical sales, systems engineering and product management, David has invaluable expertise in helping customers streamline their business processes using technology. David is a U.S. patent holder with a degree in Computer Science from University of Southern Maine.