Companies that have ECM systems often realize savings, company says.
When the auditors show up, controllers and their staffs might have to shut down, depending on the level of personnel participation and support required to find and pull the documentation needed to support the companies’ books; but it doesn’t have to be that way, according to Steve Snider, controller at ACOM Solutions, Inc.
“Many corporate financial executives assume that they have to diverge from normal activities in order to provide support for the auditors, and that is often the case,” Snider said, noting that the larger and more complex the company, the greater the drain on resources. “But companies that shift out of paper-based record-keeping to electronic content management can not only avoid assigning personnel to the audit team but also help them complete their work faster and shorten their time out-of-office while also making their tasks easier.”
Paper-based record audits usually require that file storage boxes be pulled from their repositories so that the auditors can perform random samplings over a range of time and function. This is a normally cumbersome physical process that besides being time-consuming is also associated with document copying, missing-item searches and re-filing. Conversely, Snider said, electronic record-keeping is a streamlined process that avoids all of the problems of physical files. Once auditors are familiar with a solution’s processes and are logged on, further participation by company personnel is rarely required.
“At ACOM, we often serve as our own test bed, and we proved the efficacy of our EZContentManager document management system in our operations before ever taking the product to market,” Snider said. “When the auditors arrive, we simply show them how to log on, provide them with the necessary security permissions, and demonstrate how to access, retrieve and review documents]. Because document storage is automatic, auditors need have no concerns about missing files and they don’t have to extrapolate to account for missing pieces. They do their work faster, with less effort, and virtually no further involvement from our staff.”
ACOM has probably realized at least a 10 percent reduction in fees, Snider said, noting that in other types and sizes of companies the savings could be much greater.
“The opportunities will vary from company to company,” he said, “and we are not necessarily typical. The more involved the audit, the greater the savings. In a manufacturing enterprise with a similar number of employees, for example, there might be ten times as many invoices. The audit will be much larger and since they no longer have to pull paper copies, the process will be much faster and the savings commensurately greater.”
All auditors now accept electronic documentation, he added, making for a better overall experience both for themselves and the companies they are auditing.
About EZContentManager
EZContentManager is a scalable, Web-based content and document management system that allows companies to centralize corporate files of any type in a single password-secured data repository, with browser-driven, on-board retrieval and distribution engines providing fast and convenient searching and handling. Documents from other ACOM solutions are indexed and archived automatically as they are generated, while externally obtained documents are scanned into EZContentManager and indexed automatically as part of the scanning/archiving process. Documents can be retrieved and viewed on the desktop using either metadata or full-text search. Distribution options include printed copies and the solution’s integrated email and fax interfaces. Content is protected through four-level security.
About ACOM Solutions, Inc.
Now in its 26th year of business, ACOM Solutions, Inc. develops modular software systems for document output, document management, secure corporate payments, and B2B EDI/XML e-commerce, marketing them directly and through a widespread domestic and overseas partner network. Corporate headquarters are in Long Beach, California and System i Software Division headquarters are in Duluth, Georgia. For more information, call 800-699-5758, email
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