Store and archive documents and receipts correctly: with the 365 / AX Connector for ELO

1. From your experience: How do companies organize the filing of important documents nowadays?

Many companies still do not have a complete and consistent system for filing and archiving important documents. There is often a colorful mix of digitally archived data and documents in classic folders. In addition to the paper archive, in which incoming documents are preferably collected, sorted and filed, outgoing documents are then stored in the Windows file system, in e-mail inboxes or in the ERP system. Often the data is even stored on different hard disks. Unfortunately, this is still common practice in companies. Many employees - from clerks to department heads - therefore spend a large part of their working time searching for documents.

2. Do you know roughly how much time is involved here?

We once tested and evaluated over a longer period of time how long employees need to search for documents that are not stored centrally. On average, the search takes 5 minutes longer. With 2 searches per hour and per department, this amounts to around 1.5 hours of working time lost by the department per day alone. Extrapolated to the month, this amounts to 30 hours or 360 hours per year. In other words, an extreme amount of time.  

To prevent this, there are a few key criteria that every company should take into account when archiving important documents.

3. What are these criteria for good archiving?

Good archiving should fulfill these criteria:

• The documents are stored or filed centrally in one place.
• The documents are optimally sorted and indexed and can be found quickly without a lengthy search.
• Every employee knows where the documents relevant to them are located and has access to them.
• Several employees can access documents at the same time.
• And most importantly, the documents are stored in an audit-proof and therefore legally compliant manner.

4. Why is audit compliance so important?

The central criterion for the storage of documents is in fact revision security. This means that the archived document must always look exactly as it did when it was created or stored. Sounds banal, but it is not a matter of course. This is because all outgoing documents such as invoices, quotations, delivery bills etc. can still be retrieved from your own ERP system years later. Many companies use or misinterpret this option as document archiving. This is fatal, because if something has changed during this time frame - for example, business form, logo, address - these changes are reflected in the new document. This means that this document is not an identical copy and does not comply with the principles of proper accounting (GoB) or the principles of data access and verifiability of digital documents (GDPdU).

5. Do you therefore recommend a paper archive?

No. It is true that the original paper documents are always audit-proof by definition, but in addition to the criteria for good archiving described above, there are two other points that are not given with paper: Space-saving and redundant. And fast retrieval or parallel access is also only possible to a limited extent with paper.

Space-saving
For small and medium-sized companies, 1,000 documents per week such as incoming and sales invoices, quotations, order confirmations, delivery bills, credit notes, etc. have long been a reality. Even with only two pages per document, that's 6 full Leitz folders per week. Each Leitz folder is approx. 8 cm wide and 32 cm high. Typical filing shelves measuring 1 m wide, 2 m high and 30 cm deep are therefore completely full within 10 weeks. With a paper archive, you therefore need at least 5 filing shelves per year.

Alternatively, you could archive only the “important” documents in paper form and the rest electronically; but then you have a confusing mixed system again.

Redundant
Another disadvantage of paper is the risk of technical damage. Fire, but also a burst pipe in an archive in the basement, can destroy all paper documents in one fell swoop.

With a digital archive - keyword cloud - both points can be solved very easily. Documents can be found digitally with just a few clicks directly in your own ERP system: That would be the goal.

By the way: digitally archived, a file shelf is roughly equivalent to one gigabyte. With two 100 GB hard disks or the corresponding cloud storage, you have at least 10 years' worth.

6. You just said that you can find digital documents in your own ERP system with just a few clicks. How can you achieve this goal?

With the help of an electronic document management system (DMS) such as ELO professional, Docuware, D3 or Windream. There are many providers here. Documents can be stored and archived centrally in DMS systems using drag & drop. Depending on your IT infrastructure, the data is then either on your server or in the cloud. Full-text searches within the documents and good indexing of the stored documents guarantee quick retrieval. As you can see: All of the important criteria are thus reliably fulfilled.

Of course, it is ideal if you connect your DMS system with your ERP system. Then large parts of the filing and archiving process run completely automatically. With the 365 / AX Connector for ELO, we have developed an add-on for Microsoft Dynamics AX and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations that can do just that.

7. Why do you use ELO's DMS for your connector?

We have been a business partner of ELO Digital Office GmbH for around 10 years. ELO is the leading product for German-speaking countries and stands for efficient document management. This is where we started developing our solution. The 365 / AX Connector for ELO has been successfully used by our customers for over 5 years.
In addition to a connector for ELO, we are currently working on a flexible DMS framework with which we can integrate almost all DMS systems. Then we will also have connectors for all other DMS systems. Connectors for Docuware, Easy, D3 and Windream are planned for this year.

8. Over the course of a few years, thousands of documents will certainly end up in the DMS archive. How can you keep track of this and find the documents you are looking for straight away?

Indexing and good tagging are important for quick retrieval. This meta information can be attached to each uploaded document in the DMS. You have to think about this information once in advance, then documents of the same type are always tagged according to this pattern.

An example:
For invoices, it has proven useful to always include this information: Invoice number, customer number, booking date, customer name, order number and invoice amount. Even if you only roughly know what you are looking for, this tagging together with the full-text search means that you will find the document you are looking for in no time at all.

9. It sounds very time-consuming to index all documents. Is it?

It is only time-consuming if you index all documents manually. I advise against this. With the connectors already mentioned, you can automate most of this process. In the case of the 365 / AX Connector for ELO, outgoing documents from your Microsoft ERP system are indexed fully automatically and archived in ELO in a structured manner. Incoming documents are linked to the corresponding posting process in your Microsoft ERP system via barcodes. As the barcodes are applied manually, we speak of semi-automatic archiving for incoming documents.

10. Can you clarify the difference between incoming and outgoing documents in interaction with the 365 / AX Connector for ELO?

Gladly. Let's start in general terms: There are always two steps involved in archiving

1. The corresponding document must be saved in the DMS
2. The file must be labeled with specific keywords within the DMS. There is a template for each document type for this purpose.

Outgoing documents
With outgoing documents, both steps are fully automated.

Explained using an example:
We create an invoice. The source of this document is our own ERP system. If this invoice is then posted in the ERP system, a PDF document is generated. This is where the Dynamics Connector for ELO comes into play. It stores this PDF in the DMS as it is at that moment - keyword revision security - fully automatically and taking into account the defined keywording for invoices. Without manual intervention, the document is transferred to the ELO archive - including all previously defined metadata.

Incoming documents
For incoming documents, only the second step runs automatically. Saving in the ELO DMS and attaching a unique criterion to the document - we recommend using a barcode for this - are manual activities.

Explained using an example:
We receive an incoming invoice from a vendor - whether as a letter or PDF. This document is now manually assigned a barcode and uploaded to the DMS. No keywords are stored here yet - only the unique barcode is assigned to the document at this point.
If this incoming invoice is then processed in the ERP system, a new field appears: “Barcode”. The barcode number is entered here. This is also still a manual activity. When posting, the 365 / AX Connector for ELO now uses the barcode to search for the corresponding document with the same barcode in the DMS and then completes the keywording fully automatically.

11. Are you completely free to choose the characteristics you want to tag?

Yes, there is a keywording mask in the DMS for each document type. This is freely configurable and is then mapped to the corresponding fields in the ERP system via the 365 / AX Connector for ELO.

12. Do I also need OCR software?

No. This functionality is already available in ELO. 

13. What are the advantages of linking the DMS and ERP system?

No long searches, all data is stored centrally in one place, the archive is audit-proof, legally compliant and space-saving, every employee knows where the documents are located and simultaneous access to documents is possible: these alone are the advantages that a DMS solution already offers you.

Now there are also the advantages of linking the DMS and ERP system with the 365 / AX Connector for ELO. Filing, archiving and indexing are carried out automatically or semi-automatically - and therefore error-free. The automation also saves a significant amount of time, effort and money.

14. Do employees then always have to work with two systems, ERP system and ELO DMS?

No, because there is another big advantage to this link. From then on, you have direct access to all documents and business transactions via your ERP client. You can browse through the archive without opening your ELO DMS. For example, freely configurable search buttons that you can place at various points in the ERP system are extremely helpful. Of course, all documents (mostly incoming documents) that have not been archived via the ERP system are also displayed.

Incoming invoices and delivery bills then appear, for example, with the order and the supplier; outgoing invoices, delivery bills and order confirmations can be found with the order and the customer.