Somerset County Council – a Fax solution Case Study

OpenText RightFax Software enables real-time eDocument delivery for Somerset County Council

This is helping them to achieve part of their mission statement “To provide good quality services that are accessible, responsive and sustainable”

Controlling their business process management (BPM)

In order to provide good quality and efficient services, the Council has implemented business process management solutions which automate manual processes and provide fully electronic communication, collaboration, process management and workflow.

In an organisation such as a Council, where numerous participants manage a myriad of entities and resources across diversified projects, this becomes a key tool.

An initial requirement for Somerset County Council was to automate document processing, in order to speed the process for sending accounts documentation, such as remittance advices.

After some evaluation the Council proceeded to upgrade their existing RightFax software solution to RightFax UIX. RightFax UIX had all the functionality required to distribute documents in a timely and efficient way and it integrated with their CedAr Financials system.

Archie Needs, Principal Financial Systems Officer at Somerset County Council comments “We deal through a ProcessFlows Partner, Acal. I have found both the Acal and ProcessFlows staff both helpful and knowledgeable. As we already had a tried and tested RightFax solution for network faxing, and I was confident with the account management, it was a logical step to speak with them when we wanted to move towards BPM as part of the eprocurement/ modernisation agenda and also to secure some cost savings. RightFax UIX was proposed to us and met our specifications.”

Electronic fax is used to electronically deliver BACS remittance advices

Discussing the council’s utilisation of RightFax UIX, Archie says, “We currently use RightFax for electronically transmitting our BACS remittance advices from CedAr Financials. After each BACS run, a file is passed from our Sun UNIX box, which houses CedAr Financials, across to the Dell RightFax server. The remittances are then e-mailed/faxed to our suppliers and any non-deliverable/rejects are dealt with by the financial systems team using the RightFax utilities.“

RightFax UIX e-document delivery automates the exchange of business information. This is achieved by the integration of the solution with applications already utilised by the organisation, which may include email, desktop, CRM, ERP, document management, host, legacy and other business applications. The ability to provide complete e-document delivery and receipt undoubtedly reduces cost, speeds communication and improves business process efficiency.

Archie continues “over 81% are now sent electronically and we hope to increase this percentage. The savings will enable us to reduce the number of cheques produced and concentrate on paying more of our suppliers by BACS.“

RightFax UIX has enabled Somerset County Council to provide high-volume, low-cost, real-time e-document delivery of application generated documents, without changing their existing applications. Business information such as purchase orders, invoices and statements can now be electronically exchanged via fax, email or the Internet.

“The original business case identified that the additional set up costs would be recovered after about 9 months and after that we should see ongoing savings. We are confident this will be achieved. We remain in contact with our ProcessFlows Partner, Acal, and although there are no immediate plans to upgrade, we keep abreast of new technology to ensure the Council’s services are managed in the most cost effective and efficient way. Therefore, we are obviously interested in any new functionality which may become available in the RightFax UIX solution.” Archie concludes.