AFS

A Global Leader in Freight Audit & Payment Services

The Challenge

Conquering a Mountain of Paperwork

With the acquisition of Trendset in 2013, AFS solidified its position as a premier provider of advanced freight and account payment solutions. And with it, AFS acquired a FlexiCapture based solution for automating the capture of invoices that the company processes on behalf of its customers. Implemented in 2008, the system automated the processing of 2.6 million paper invoices a year – amounting to more than 150,000 pages a week. But in addition to the sheer numbers involved, more complicated issues had to be faced.

By 2008, 80 percent of the invoices were processed via EDI. Even so, this meant almost six million were still arriving by post as paper documents. To answer this challenge required three fulltime mailroom staff and four high-speed scanning stations manned by four full-time personnel. However, the vast majority of the forms received were not suitable for batch processing because there was no consistency in their designs. The existing OCR system was largely unable to work with such unstructured and semi-structured forms. On average it could only capture data from two fields per form – leaving sixteen more requiring entry. To verify the recognized fields and enter the remaining sixteen fields demanded additional manpower: 25 full-time data entry operators.

  • Name

    AFS

  • Location

    Louisiana, United States

  • Industry

    Service Bureau - Logistics

  • Solutions Implemented

    Invoice Processing

  • Contact Optiform

Easing the Climb with ABBYY FlexiCapture

Rapidly expanding business meant that the sheer volume of paper the company had to process every day would soon become unmanageable. But hiring more staff would have cut deeply into profits, which was unacceptable. What was needed was software that could automatically capture and convert imaged data on unstructured paper forms into computer-usable data, with extremely high accuracy. And Jay Johnson, head of the company’s Information Technology department found the answer: ABBYY FlexiCapture.

According to Johnson, FlexiCapture’s remarkable accuracy, and intelligent document recognition dramatically improved operations. The system automatically differentiated invoices from supporting documents and detected the first page of every new invoice. Mailroom and data processing staff dropped from a total of 28 to 16. And the solution extracted all required data from forms – 18 fields instead of just the previous two. Plus, turn around time dropped 50%, FlexiCapture’s classification accuracy eliminated the need for cover pages and separator sheets, and annual savings of $60,000 were realized.

Our Solution. Their Results.

Six Years On, and Even More Benefits from FlexiCapture

Big changes have happened at AFS since 2008. Seventy million invoices are now processed annually and 95 percent are now processed via EDI. Even so, with the expansion of business, the number of paper invoices is growing. Plus, to serve its customers properly, AFS has had to greatly expand the amount of information it captures from each invoice: 46 fields, as opposed to 18 just six years ago. “And we’re adding more capability,” says Randy Broom, IT Director. “Our goal is to expand the solution to capture 50 fields in the near future.” And how has FlexiCapture delivered during this hectic growth period? “Brilliantly,” according to Broom. “ABBYY FlexiCapture keeps bringing a lot of efficiency into our process for paper invoices. Our operators fly through the OCR results much faster and more efficiently than it would have been with manual keying.”

Position your team for success

Are you ready to unleash the full potential for your business processes?

Optiform offers a broad spectrum of data processing solutions beneficial and able to be customized to fit any business need. From standard human resource departments to the information produced through clinical trials, Optiform has a long history of maximizing the efficiency of all its clients. Although the Optiform to sit and hear your needs, personalized support and recommendations pre and post project ensure your long term sanctification with your paper free results. Contact us today to set up a personalized, one-on-one consultation on software recommendations. Already a valued Optiform client? Our customer support is ready to help.