Using Web Portals to Streamline Document Processing

While the majority of paper has gone away when processing claims, expense reports and, in some cases, invoices and purchase requisitions—and what isn’t EDI—has been replaced by email and attachments.

Email submissions eliminate the need to scan paper documents—a huge headache that is best outsourced—but, unless you want to manually enter everything received, you’ll need software, processes and people in place to manage it or you can outsource that as well. And that represents only a small improvement over scanning paper documents.

We provide both software and outsourcing for processing email and attachments but, in many cases, there’s an even better way: using web portals for self-service submissions that include having the submitter enter information that can serve as metadata used to find the uploaded documents after they’re processed.

Self-Service

If you have people still sending in paper or faxing documents, they can instead scan documents on their own scanner, perhaps even their smartphone, and then upload them. They can also log in to view online document submission history and the status of documents submitted without having to call. Universities have been using portals for years to accept applications, transcripts and financial aid documents.

How much time would this save your customer service, AP or claims processing departments?

Workflow Automation & Document Management

Portal submissions can automatically feed workflows that are also automated: claims, receipts, invoices, work orders, or any other type of document can be routed directly to whoever needs to process them. Some of this processing can also be automated for “straight-through” or “touchless” processing, whose cost can be justified by the labor savings. Both email and attachments can be stored in your document management system, or ApplicationXtender (AX) if you don’t have one.

Custom Portal Development

Many cloud software applications like human capital management (HCM) have built-in portals (employee self-service for HCM). However, they may not have all the functionality you want, including feeding directly into a workflow system, and not all applications offer them in the first place. This is why custom portal development may be the answer. And because portals are now far more commonly used than before, the professional services involved may not be as much as you think.

How Will You Benefit Most?

Think about how many document attachments you receive on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. How much time is spent processing them? Even if it’s 20 minutes per day and we a portal could cut that processing time in half, that would equate getting an additional week of productivity from one of the employees involved.

Contact us to learn more about using web portals to streamline document submissions