Initially founded in 1974, Displays2Go is a business that has grown into a worldwide outreach. It specializes in various trade shows and marketing display products. Most of these are kept in inventory and shipped out the same day. Displays2Go now ships over 2,000 packages each day from their warehouse located in Massachusetts. Because of this, the company has quite the load of financial tracking.
Technology Solution for Financial Management
Displays2Go had a couple major issues due to the growth of the business. This includes keeping up with transactions and maintaining accuracy. The company decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics and Datahaven to streamline its financial reporting and accounting services. Using this technology created instant results in improving processing efficiency as well as corporate sustainability and providing more transaction visibility.
Streamline Invoice Processing
Datahaven seamlessly integrates with Microsoft Dynamics to allow Displays2Go to achieve immediate results. Datahaven made it possible for Displays2Go to use advanced AP automation (Accounts Payable automation) to improve workflow. This was due to the help of its OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. The use of OCR technology helped to perform vendor identification and create expense invoices, as well as auto-post matched invoices and use three-way matching for any purchase order invoices.
Datahaven played a crucial role in saving time by handling invoices that hadn’t posted receipts. These invoices automatically go through the OCR system. The invoices are separated in a workflow queue until they post the receipts. They save a lot of time by automating the manual review process for receipts. All of this increases efficiency and boosts productivity for AP team members.
Consolidated Order Processing
The vast majority of orders occur by over two dozen web properties used by Displays2Go. However, the business also receives orders via email and mail. Before using Datahaven, the company had to initiate order fulfillment. They did this by requiring paper order forms to be electronically emailed or physically circulated to several employees in the organization. Ultimately, no one knew the status of these orders without sending additional emails or making more phone calls.
Datahaven made it possible to eliminate email and paper order processing by consolidating these orders into a central entry point. They reduced the need for manually re-entering orders by funneling all of the orders into one location. Employees saved a lot of time from this. Using OCR technology, all of this data was automatically extracted into Dynamics, whether it was an email, scanned document, or attachment.
They initiated these automated workflows based on pre-defined rules that significantly streamlined the entire order-to-cash process. Eliminating the processes of various physical paper and email orders made the whole company more efficient in processing orders and invoices. Now, Displays2Go can quickly process orders by getting the products delivered sooner and expediting cash flow. Decreased by 40%, these tech changes resulted in the order-to-ship cycle.
Enhance Visibility of Financial Data
The centralization of all purchasing and financial transactions in Dynamics made it much easier to view the entire lifecycle of transactions. This lifecycle includes spreadsheets, audit procedures and supporting documents. Datahaven’s innovative design is based on Windows Explorer. It’s the only product that uses smart technology for reducing data entry mistakes as well as human errors by using real-time virtual folder structures. These folders use live data in Dynamics. It automatically changes based on various criteria to increase visibility.
A single source of information for each transaction is a significant advantage. The company is no longer having to use several different systems for managing all of this data. Each employee has access to the same user interface that provides them with the data for emails, documents, and other files.
Achieve Corporate Sustainability Goals
Implementing Datahaven made it possible for Displays2Go to reach its corporate goals for sustainability. Instead of heavily relying on paperwork, Displays2Go now manages and coordinates numerous workflow processes with minimal paper used. The company spent around $45,000 on paper and toner each year. Now, due to using Datahaven, they have been able to cut those costs by 95%.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, choosing to use Datahaven was a quality investment for Displays2Go. This innovative technology made it possible to streamline financial and accounting functions, enhance data visibility while also achieving sustainability goals. Using Datahaven played a significant role in not only reducing operational costs, but also making the tasks of each employee much more manageable.
