Landscape Structures deploys Automation for Microsoft Dynamics AX, increasing efficiency and ROI.

Situation

Landscape Structures is on a mission to provide the safest, most inclusive and creative playground equipment to allow kids to be #ShapedByPlay. In order to deliver the fun stuff, Landscape Structures needed to make sure that their accounts payable processes were efficient, modern and up-to-date. A legacy document management solution and inefficient, manual AP processes were holding them back and, according to corporate controller Brant Dennis, “The workload was starting to become more unmanageable. At the same time, our process was very paper-intensive and manual. We were relying on an ancient document management system.”

With only one AP person on staff, Dennis and his team knew they needed to come up with a new document management solution that was updated and modern. They were on the hunt for a system that would increase efficiency by at least 30 percent, reduce high printing and paper costs associated with their current AP processing, and automate the capture of invoice data to reduce manual keying.

Landscape Structures was also utilizing Microsoft Dynamics AX as their financial solution and knew it was important to retain their existing AX functionality and PO, receipt and invoice matching capabilities.

Solution

After seeing a demonstration of MetaViewer Paperless Automation at the 2016 Microsoft Dynamics User Group Summit, the Landscape Structures team began to dive into the functionality of the solution.

“We didn’t know that we were looking for an AP automation solution right away, we just knew that we wanted to improve AP processes and come up with a document management solution that was updated and modern,” Dennis said.

As they began to evaluate solutions, they quickly realized that some were more focused on AP automation, while others were more focused on document management.

“Ultimately, it felt like one of the reasons Metafile was on the final list was because it had both solutions available in one package,” Dennis said.

The Landscape Structures accounting team joined forces with the IT team to choose a solution that would best fit their needs. According to IT business analyst Janith Vermilya-Jacobson, “The system had to make sense to them and they needed to understand it. We had to go with the one that stood out to them and the one that made them say ‘we can do this.’”

The team saw how straight-forward and user-friendly the MetaViewer interface was, and appreciated the OCR and customized Vendor Profile Creation capability. MetaViewer also suited their needs due to MetaViewer’s strong Microsoft AX experience. Before they knew it, the MetaViewer team gave them the confidence they needed to know that MetaViewer was the right solution for them.

Results

Implementation took only four months, and the streamlined integration with their Microsoft Dynamics AX solution strengthened the team’s efficiency.

In fact, Landscape Structures was able to achieve a 30 percent time savings, as well as all of the paper, printing and scanning savings that they had anticipated. And because of the extensive functionality that MetaViewer offers, Landscape Structures plans to expand and leverage the technology to improve processes in other parts of the enterprise. Now that they have experienced the benefits of automation in AP, they are examining additional procedures and problem areas within the organization to see how MetaViewer’s automated workflow capabilities can help. They believe that optimizing further will result in at least another 20 percent increase in savings.

Overall, Landscape Structures has found that the process feels more efficient and the workflow is improved over their previous legacy system.

“We are increasing in volume, but have been able to maintain staffing levels because of the efficiency,” Dennis said. “MetaViewer has given us more confidence that we can increase the volume and number of vendors and invoices without risk of processing errors or adding staff. We can focus more on exceptions and review of the information instead of keying and duplication efforts.”

The solution also is scalable and the team sees the potential to expand its use across the enterprise. According to director of IT and president of the MN AXUG Chapter Sally Prinsen, the benefits of the streamlined integration with Microsoft Dynamics AX was immediately apparent.

“For anyone running AX, it’s important to have a seamless integration,” Prinsen said. “In terms of overall impact on the infrastructure or the support model, it was very minimal.”

The team has become more confident that invoices are not falling through the cracks and that processes are faster, more accurate and paperless. They now have greater visibility as to where invoices are sitting in queue and no longer having to wonder what is sitting on managers desks or in their mailboxes waiting for approval.

“Overall, we are very satisfied with Metaviewer and what it has brought to our company,” Dennis said.