Procedure Before
- Orders are entered into the system and then printed on 4-part carbonless paper. (white, pink, yellow & green) This document is referred to as a POD ticket (Point Of Delivery). The complete document is used to load the items for the customer onto the truck and accompany the order to be delivered.
- At the time of delivery, the customer may also want additional products that are available on the delivery truck. The delivery people will hand-write the additional products onto the delivery POD.
- The customer taking receipt will sign for the delivery and is left with a yellow copy of the POD ticket.
- The delivery person will return the paperwork from the deliveries. The office will review the green copy of the POD ticket for any ‘delivery site’ add-ons. If products were added, then those items are entered into the system and a corrected POD ticket is created and then invoiced along with the batch of orders that were delivered.
- The invoice and the accompanying white copy of the POD ticket is folded and inserted into an envelope to be mailed to the customer. - The original signed pink copy of the POD ticket, the reprinted POD ticket if add-ons and the invoice will be filed for archival storage.
- Printing, collating, folding, inserting, sealing and mailing of the documents will take a few hours the day after the delivery.
- The mailed invoice will then take 1 to 3 days to be delivered to the customer.
- Customer processes and pays the bill based on their payment cycle.
- Total cycle time - 2 or 3 weeks.
When customers call to ask for a copy or have questions about their invoice or statement the office assistant would walk over to their filing cabinet locate the statement or invoice pull it out of the file and brought to their desk to be dealt with. Then later filed away again.
Procedure After
- Orders are entered into the system. Two copies of the order are printed – 1on plain white paper and 1 on yellow paper. (They replaced the 4 part carbonless tractor feed form). This new POD ticket is still used for pulling product and delivery instructions and to accompany the product for delivery.
- At the time of delivery, the customer may also want additional products that are available on the delivery truck. The delivery people will hand-write the additional products onto the delivery POD ticket.
- The person taking receipt will sign for the delivery and is left the yellow copy of the POD ticket.
- When the POD tickets are returned to the office, the white sheet of the POD ticket will be scanned to become an electronic image and checked for add-ons that are entered into the system. The POD tickets are invoiced, with the invoice images being stored on disk.
- The invoices with the accompanying scanned electronic images are transmitted to ODP (Online Data Processing Inc.).
- ODP then separates the job into two groups - one for printing paper invoices and documents and one that will be collated and sent via Secure Notice to the appropriate e-mail address and faxes.
- The paper invoices and documents are sorted into best postage rate sequence and processed for delivery to the USPS.
- The Secure Notice invoices are grouped and stored in a secure server. A notice is transmitted to the appropriate accounts receivable department, telling them the billing is ready to be picked up. The customer can then securely download their invoice through a web interface. Once the billing information is picked up it is ready for processing into the accounts payable process since it is already electronic.
- Total cycle time - 2 to 5 days. Time savings in the office - 4 hours per day
Documents are archived and stored for future retrieval and a web portal is provided to view and easily resend documents to clients via fax or Secure Notice.
Future development will be to add mobile apps for each delivery truck to handle the signing for products received. This will take out the need for paper and other additional entry steps.