inFORM Decisions, a provider of iSeries document automation and payment automation solutions, announced it has reached a milestone of 1000 trees planted through the Arbor Day Foundation’s Gift of Trees Program to assist in the reforestation of burned-over national forest areas in the United States. Trees were paid for by inFORM each time it concluded the sale of any of its document automation or payment automation solutions starting in 2009. This program is in alignment with inFORM’s larger effort to make a responsible contribution to natural forest resources in a way that involves its employees and clients.

Founded in 1994, inFORM Decisions (inFORM or IFD) provides powerful software solutions to address the growing need to efficiently manage paper workloads throughout the enterprise. Hundreds of inFORM’s clients have realized the paperless benefits of saving time and money, while at the same time benefiting the environment. A major focus of IT departments today is finding better ways to automate and eliminate the costs associated with business, report, and check document processing, output, storage and retrieval.

"A key line-item of our IFD Green Policy includes support of leading tree-conservation organizations," says Dan Forster, president of inFORM Decisions. "The Arbor Day Foundation and their Gift of Trees Program has inspired employees and clients alike to get behind the idea of tying our efforts directly to the restoration of damaged forests."

inFORM’s commitment to the Gift of Trees Program run by The Arbor Day Foundation is a key part of the company’s passion to take concrete actions to protect our nation’s forests. Since 2009, inFORM has included the message of forest protection and regeneration in its articles, white papers, advertising and social networking and corporate messaging. By exceeding its goal of 1000 trees planted through the Gift of Trees Program, inFORM’s employees have helped to protect our nation’s forest resources for current and future generations. This supports the company’s major focus to enable organizations to transition to a paperless working environment using the software solutions in the company’s document and payment automation product families.

Practical benefits of document automation include eliminating office paperwork and streamlining document workflow, resulting in significant savings for the enterprise in time-to-process, labor workloads and printer and supplies costs. Setup and installation generally takes one day per module.

Environmental benefits of document automation include lowering pressure on old growth forests, elimination of the need for ink, cartridges and printers that end up in landfills, and reductions in the use of power. Old growth forests have been called lungs of the earth because they convert carbon dioxide back into oxygen. Total global forests are estimated to have originally covered 15 billion acres; this has shrunk to 9 billion acres today and continues to shrink at an alarming rate.

Green Page
The IFD Green Page on the inFORM Decisions Website provides 440 links to highly useful information that organizations can use to cut their use of paper and reduce power usage, reducing IT operating costs, protecting the environment and strengthening their sustainable use policies.

Product Families
• iDocs is the central document processing engine that runs seamlessly with accounting/ERP software applications. iDocs monitors for iSeries spool files, database files or XML data to process and route based on user-defined business rules.
• iPayments is a solution for Automated Clearing House (ACH) that enables electronic payments of Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable. iPayments provides a lower transaction cost, better tracking and elimination of check stock. Additionally, when iACH is integrated with iMail, and iFAX remittance statements may be delivered to the recipient at lower cost.
• iChecks allow users to bring laser check printing operations in-house. iSeries MICR check integration increases laser check printing security with its utilization of blank security paper, the requirement to use passwords to even print checks, and optional security modules like Positive Pay and Check-Secure.
• Positive Pay is an optional security module to inFORM Decisions's iChecks laser iSeries check printing software. Positive Pay captures pertinent information and saves it into the Cash Handling File. During a pre-set and automated time, the AS/400, System i, IBM i natively collects the data, runs a calculation of totals and transmits this report via secure FTP, web service or modem to the bank.
• Check-Secure is a removable, programmable security device that has memory keys and can be programmed with signatures, a MICR font, or any sensitive fonts or data that might be used in printing operations.

All inFORM products run native on the IBM AS/400, iSeries, i5, System i and IBM i Power System servers.