St. Vincent Health streamlines accounts payable processes

Challenge

As a nonprofit institution, St. Vincent Health is always seeking ways to be more efficient. For the past 15 years, the ministry has been working with IBM Business Partner CGI Group Inc. to improve performance and contain costs. St. Vincent implemented a CGI Sovera Health Information Management (HIM) system to scan, distribute, store and manage legal medical records. Then the organization deployed a CGI Sovera Patient Financial Services (PFS) system to automate the post-billing and collections processes. At the core of both systems is the IBM Enterprise Content Management (ECM) platform.

It was now time to tackle paper invoices and the respective approvals required across the health system. Largely paper-based and email-driven, the accounts payable (AP) process at St. Vincent was centralized for only seven of the 20 ministries. Copies of invoices were scanned, attached to interoffice mail and sent to respective approvers across the enterprise.. The scanners were slow, and the volume bogged down the email system. Responding to vendor questions and finding documents took a great deal of work, often necessitating calls for invoices to be brought in from off-site locations. There was also a lack of accountability because of limited control over who approved an invoice and when it was approved.

Further, St. Vincent had a storage problem. The ministry needed to keep invoices and supporting content for seven years. Because of this, it was paying monthly for storing paper documents.

Based on its success with the Sovera HIM and PFS solutions, St. Vincent wanted to expand use of the underlying ECM platform to support a system that would centralize and streamline the AP process across ministries.

Solution
St. Vincent engaged CGI to implement Sovera AP software powered by familiar ECM technology. Using Datacap Taskmaster Accounts Payable Capture software and the IBM FileNet® Business Process Manager application for content management and workflow, the ministry can create clean images of paper, email and faxed invoices and verify the data before storing the electronic documents in a central IBM FileNet Content Manager repository. Embedded fingerprinting technology allows staff members to “train” the system to read the fields on different invoice formats, providing maximum flexibility to expand automation to new vendors. Once in the system, the FileNet software integrates with the ministry’s AP application from Lawson, enabling AP clerks to simply click a URL to view specific invoices.

With IBM FileNet Business Process Manager software, St. Vincent can easily create automated workflows for a range of vendors and invoice types. Within each workflow process, actions are automatically logged and controls are in place to meet regulatory, compliance and financial reporting requirements.

Benefits
· Accelerates invoice approvals and speeds end-of-month close
· Eliminates weeks of audit preparation time with a secure logon for auditors to access the information they need online
· Reduces storage costs and unclogs the email system for greater productivity

For more information
To learn more about IBM Enterprise Content Management solutions, contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner CGI, or visit:
ibm.com/software/ecm/