Gliderol’s workforce is around 200 people comprised of office staff, factory floor personnel, Managers and supervisors.

DocuWare was implemented in 2018. Recently, Docuworx sat down with Gliderol CFO Leanne Baston about how Docuworx has helped Gliderol improve its auditing process and overnight transition to remote working in the wake of Covid-19.

What led you to seek out a DMS in the first place?

There were two main factors.

The first was related to storage. As a business grows, handling paper becomes more treacherous, time-consuming and wasteful of resources. You’re not only paying for space, but you’re also paying for people to find things.

The other factor was workflows. As we’re nationwide, we wanted to improve the flow of information across the business.

And how did you find Docuworx?

We spent a few months researching to see what our options were.

After looking at comparative solutions around the world, we settled on DocuWare and found a local distributor. However, after a year with them, they weren’t even close to going live. That’s when we switched to Docuworx.

Docuworx was helpful and got the first workflow up and running within two months. We’ve continued with them since.

What have been some of the benefits?

The search and retrieval of documents in DocuWare are easy for everyone in the company, with appropriate permissions, up to the Managing Director

We now have consistency in filing terminology, which means document retrieval is quicker and easier. The time savings have been enormous.

With regards to space, we used to have 16 filing cabinets on our floor in our department and two storage rooms for archives. Thanks to Docuworx, we have been able to empty and remove all filing cabinets and repurpose the two storage rooms as offices. The time spent boxing up records and storing is now no longer required.

As far as workflows go, such as documents from customers/suppliers through to approvals, we can now do a much quicker turnaround on tasks, even if they are thousands of kilometres away. Work is immediately directed to the appropriate person as a task. The improvement of speed has also been one of the main benefits for us.

Documents are automatically filed in DocuWare, authorised electronically and entered in our system. We can have people scattered around the country who can use their mobile phones to authorise an approval on the fly.

For example, we’ve even had somebody on a boat out at sea complete an authorisation!

During Covid in lock down we didn’t stop even for a full year end audit. The auditors had already used the system the prior year so were already familiar with document retrieval. All records required for an audit are filed in DocuWare throughout the year, so there is actually no end of year rush for record filing or retrieval.

Last year, you said DocuWare has helped you maintain the same number of staff despite a 45% increase in your business? Has this continued to be the case?

Yes! By implementing DocuWare in our company, Docuworx has enabled me to keep the same staff levels despite continued strong growth in Gliderol’s business.

You have a background in computing, so DocuWare has come to you relatively easily. How have less technically minded staff members coped?

Once the staff got over the fear of something new, it hasn’t been a problem.

As the project leader, I made sure to pick easy tasks to convince staff of the usefulness, also to train it as a tool.

Staff across the business now put in requests for improving their workflows.

Then as it’s being built, staff watch it unfold. Our people have had a lot of excitement from this experience.

How many people use DocuWare on a daily basis now?

At least 30 people. We are now using DocuWare across payables, receivables, payroll, inventory, purchasing, sales processes and external auditing.

You’ve been able to do your own configurations, is that right?

We’ve identified business processes and then prioritised areas which we would like to transform digitally.

It’s not just about the finance department, but the whole business.

I first pick the tasks that show a good return on investment to get people to buy in and gain their confidence in the system.

Then it was about getting them all on board and digitising our manual processes.

Would you recommend DocuWare to other businesses?

Yes, definitely! I will also say that the more time you put into aligning DocuWare with your business, the more you’ll get out of it.

DocuWare has lots of benefits for business, such as saving time, money, space – all the big things.

And how about Docuworx?

Docuworx has been great. As I already mentioned, they were able to get us up and running much faster than the other company we initially tried.

In addition, their technical engineering team is very creative in coming up with potential solutions. Instead of putting you into a box, they give you a range of options and solutions that you select from to best suit your business needs.

Leanne Baston

CFO