Hillhouse Quarry Speeds-Up Cash Collection During Economic Freefall with Version One Integrated into Access Dimensions

Part of The Hillhouse Group, Hillhouse Quarry, a leading UK producer of crushed aggregate, ready mixed concrete and coated materials has improved cash collection by implementing an electronic document imaging system from Poynton-based Version One (sister company of V1 Document Management). This document imaging technology, which is tightly integrated into Hillhouse Quarry’s Access Dimensions accounting system, is being used to electronically store proof of deliveries (PODs), speeding-up cash collection and improving cash flow.

Charles Toyn, Accountant from Hillhouse Quarry, says, “With the economic climate as it is, our construction customers are taking even more time to pay us and so if we can’t provide them with signed delivery notes when requested, there’s little hope we’ll ever receive payment. This is why it is so important to be able to efficiently produce a delivery note alongside all sales invoices and have all PODs securely stored and easily accessible.”

Before Version One, Hillhouse Quarry used to manually file and retrieve all signed delivery notes and in the event of having to provide a copy POD, it would have to be located by hand, photocopied and then posted to the customer. This was time-consuming, prone to lost PODs and inefficient especially when a delivery note needed retrieving from Hillhouse’s secondary archive consisting of damp boxes in a derelict building.

Toyn says, “We identified the need for a reliable and fully-integrated document imaging solution that could provide quick and easy desktop access to PODs. This would speed-up the resolution of customer queries and put an end to lost PODs, thereby speeding-up our cash collection processes. After scouring the market, it was apparent that Version One was not only capable of delivering the functionality we required but was also proven to integrate into Access Dimensions.”

Using Version One, we are now billing more efficiently and collecting money faster than ever before which is particularly important when dealing with customers that are financially insecure.

- Charles Toyn, Hillhouse Quarry

Using Version One’s software, up to 6,000 PODs each month are scanned, tagged to the appropriate record in Hillhouse Quarry’s Access finance system and electronically stored. Authorised staff can now instantly view the imaged PODs either by drilling down through Access Dimensions or via Version One’s web browser. These PODs can then be emailed to customers, resolving queries within minutes.

Toyn comments, “Using Version One, we are now billing more efficiently and collecting money faster than ever before which is particularly important when dealing with customers that are financially insecure. We have also improved cash flow, are freeing-up document storage space and by resolving queries in a timelier manner, our customer service levels have also been improved.”

Hillhouse Quarry will soon be electronically storing all its sales invoices to further improve cash collection efficiency and is also looking at implementing Version One’s automated invoice processing system, DbCapture, to speed-up the capture of purchase invoice information, streamlining its purchase-to-pay process. This system uses optical character recognition (OCR) technology to automatically capture data from imaged invoices, reducing manual data entry by up to 90%.