During the Global Shelter in place, requirements were you or your team stuck at home trying to do research on invoices or complex vendor requests, but the key data you needed was back at the office in your desk files or file cabinets? Today I have on the podcast Keith Wasnok, and he is going to talk all about Document Scanning so that you can be prepared if you have to work remotely again.
What We Discuss
Keep listening.
Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help cleaning your vendor master file or implementing authentication techniques, internal controls and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments.
Subscribe today to be entered in the subscriber-only monthly drawing to win a free Putting the AP in hAPpy Coffee Mug.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Music Credit: www.purple-planet.com
During the Global Shelter in place, requirements were you or your team stuck at home trying to do research on invoices or complex vendor requests, but the key data you needed was back at the office in your desk files or file cabinets? Today I have on the podcast Keith Wasnok, and he is going to talk all about Document Scanning so that you can be prepared if you have to work remotely again.
What We Discuss
Keep listening.
Check out my website www.debrarrichardson.com if you need help cleaning your vendor master file or implementing authentication techniques, internal controls and best practices to prevent fraudulent payments.
Subscribe today to be entered in the subscriber-only monthly drawing to win a free Putting the AP in hAPpy Coffee Mug.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Music Credit: www.purple-planet.com
spk_0: 0:08
Hello, everyone. This is several Richardson and today I am putting the AP and happy where accounts payable teams are empowered to protect the vendor master file from fraud. This podcast will give a voice to accounts payable team members by talking about the growing reality of cyberattacks in their world and which vendor set up and vendor management techniques they can apply to protect the vendor master file from fraud. Are you or your team performing all possible vendor validations? Do you know which documents have the key data? You need to confirm that the vendor you are about to create or update Israel. Be sure by downloading the vendor validation reference list. It also has links toe all the resource is listed download at www dat Debra D B r A Our Richardson R i c h a r D s o n dot com During the global shelter in place requirements were you or your team stuck at home trying to research invoices or complex vendor requests? But the key data you need it was back at the office in your desk files or file cabinets. Well, today I have on the podcast Keith Woz, knock and he's going to talk all about document scanning so that you can be prepared if you have to work remotely again. Keep listening. Welcome to Episode 81. Deborah Are Richardson and Keith Wozniak discussed document scanning a critical part of your business continuity plans. So I found it interesting. That avid exchange reported that over 60% of companies have a business continuity plan in place. However, only 37% have the necessary technology to enable employees to work from home as part of that strategy. And further, only 22% have a plan that can sustain their business for more than two months. And that may be concerning to you, especially now, as this episode is being recorded during the pandemic, either now or when everyone returns back to the office. Business continuity disaster recovery plans may be created or revised, and how to a handle access to documents for accounts payable will definitely be at the top of the list. So today I have with me Kee Wah snack from tier five to talk about the options that you have Welcome, Keith. Well,
spk_1: 3:23
thank you, Deborah. I really appreciate that. Thanks for the opportunity toe come on your podcast and talk about this. This is a really especially important in today's world, you know, which is much upside down from what it was even just a month ago, and and who knows what it's gonna look like in a month? But we do know that, yeah, there's a certain business strategies that I have to change.
spk_0: 3:45
Yes, and I definitely agree with you on that. So can we start with you telling the audience just a brief introduction of your background and then also of tear? Five.
spk_1: 3:58
Yes, thanks, Deborah. Tier Five Solutions Group is a document imaging and scanning services company. We also provide documents. Scanning and imaging hardware software were also the largest canon dealer sales and service on the West Coast. I personally have about 25 years or so of Document imaging solutions experience, and that is across a wide range of businesses and industries and even the different various groups within the Enterprise AP included.
spk_0: 4:30
You know, I know you guys offer a lot of services, but in regards to document scanning, my listeners are, you know, the accounts payable the AP team members, and when we think of scanning You know, we think of invoices that come in via U. S mail. But, you know, when we did deeper into AP, especially in the vendor maintenance, we could be talking about, you know, vendor supporting documentation that we receive her copy copies of contracts, insurance certificates, that one's a big one or even, you know, all those boxes that we gave to a storage company and, you know, then we order order back whenever we need him. So, you know s were, you know, working through this pandemic. What other AP documents are relative to AP that you see being scanned or that your company has been contacted about
spk_1: 5:27
Yeah, that definitely those documents that you're talking about are all critical documents that need to be in electronic form. Other paper based information for the accounts payable. I have to do with shipping tickets. Manifest signed P ODS. Anything having to do with three way matching process. Getting those into Elektronik warms into the process is very important.
spk_0: 5:51
Yeah, and, you know, with this pandemic and some accounts payable teams working 100% remotely, some not 100% because they have passed, like check payments or those mailed invoices we just talked about. And so they batter now senti members into the office, you know, still practicing that social distancing of pores. What have you seen as response to the significant increase in remote work? Is Tier five phone kind of ringing off the hook? Isn't one that's seen a spike in business because of the fact that there is not an easy option toe? Get access to those hard copy documents anymore?
spk_1: 6:34
That's a great question, and the answer is yes. We have seen a significant uptick in enquiries about getting documents into the hands of remote workers. We got a call just a couple of days ago from a local private college. That said, Everybody in our department need access to student files and they're all in violent cabinets at the campus of campuses would be locked down, and another customer that called in said they have a person that every time there's a document request, this one person goes to the office, runs inside, pulls the file, scans it on their multi function peripheral on the printer scanner, e mails it to the person who requested it, and this person is doing this 89 10 20 times a day. So the answer yeah, is definitely. We've seen an uptick in business and increase about that.
spk_0: 7:22
Yeah, and you know, I believe that. And they're very dedicated, especially in a Pius well dedicated workers that are willing to do what needs to be done to get the job done. So let's say we've got, you know, an a P T. They're coming back to work. They know they need a plan because they felt all the pain points right of having not having access to digital records. So they know those pain points. They know they're going to be updating their or creating that business continuity or disaster recovery plan and business continuity to your five even has, like a page dedicated to that. So if an AP listener contacted you today and said, we need her copy records scanned, what is that process? How long will it take? What is their level of effort? And I'm just thinking about those file cabinets. You know, those boxes of records on site and off site. It kind of seems overwhelming. Is the process overwhelming?
spk_1: 8:26
Three. Answer is yes and no, it's the answer is no if you're a company like us that does the document scanning services a complete turnkey solution. Sounds like a commercial. I'm sorry, but yeah, we have the processes and experience to come in. Box up your files taken back to our center, get him scan through high speed production quality scanners. Get him back to you and electronic warm in a pretty quick manner. We have other customers that decide. They just they want to purchase a scanner and do it themselves. That's fine. A lot of times that ends up. They are only doing a handful of the documents that were produced from that day forward. Eso Their back file is growing and growing, so it can be overwhelming if if you are trying to do it yourself. But they can be less than overwhelming. And I can tell you exactly what happens. What? You We receive a call. We do an assessment of your needs. We find. Find out the basics of your requirements will get any questions answered. We'll find out what your turnaround time our minds are. We'll come out, we'll get the documents getting boxed up if necessary, taking back to our facility and then get them scanned and converted, then back in electronic one.
spk_0: 9:44
Let's say we go through that step. We go through the initial steps, you get everything. Scans give them back to us in in Elektronik form is the goal at that point from that moment on for the accounts payable team to change your processes to accept more electronic versions of documents? Or will it always be a point where we'll have to return to tear five, maybe in some type of recurring schedule, and have you continuously, um, digitize the hard copies that we've gotten in? What's the normal process?
spk_1: 10:19
Well, most of our customers are actually repeat business on. We do business with them on a recurring basis. Some are weekly, some are monthly. Sum is summer quarterly, too. But yeah, we are in it for a long term relationship with the customer customer. As long as they're happy with us, will continue to use us and keep digitizing the records for
spk_0: 10:41
so as they get in these hard copies, they can send them to your five, and you will digitize those. And that process just keeps recurring as long as they have hard copies coming in exactly exactly. So is this more foreign that say it's a typical day in accounts payable and we're getting in. You know, Male just came in and so we got in, I don't know, 100 invoices. Is this for that process? Or is this Once we've keyed in and process the invoice, then we send that in for long term storage or for to digitize it so that if we need to pull it up again, we can. Is that how it's used?
spk_1: 11:24
It kind of works both ways. You can use the images integrated with your whatever financials you know in your e r P system on your accounts payable system. If you want to use those on an active basis on the workflow basis, you could do that. You know, we can provide tools to allow you to do that, but it all goes to. It also goes to the other side of spectrum, where it's just pure storage and retrieval archive. We have a lot of customers choose to do that as well.
spk_0: 11:53
Okay, I see what you're saying. So let's say if an accounts payable team didn't want to use it for you know, those invoices that come in through the mail. They could use your equipment to scan that, uh, those documents in and then attach those documents maybe to their ear piece so that they can, you know, have a digital image of the invoice. So that's what you meant before when you said a client cooks candid in themselves or they considered, in particular five to scan in one being. This is our process that we can do our data processing and vast the scanning in themselves, using your equipment and then the other being this is long term storage for, like, insurance certificates. And we'll send that to you and you'll scan it. And then it will be accessible if we need it in the future.
spk_1: 12:41
That yeah, exactly. Right. Okay, that is, well, well stated. Yeah, exactly. And in terms of the long term storage and access to the documents outside of the enterprise outside of your business, we can provide you with a late basically just a link to a website where you are authenticated, where security happens, and once you're inside the system that you can search for your see your vendor contracts or vendor maintenance, file documents and then access them that way on the long term basis.
spk_0: 13:13
I was gonna ask you about that too. So you're saying once the records and documents of scans, let's say we have an AP team member working remotely, right? Cause we put our business continuity disaster plan. We've implemented that. And so we fat someone working, you know, from home one or two days per week or per mile so that we could test it. And that person used to access one of the images that has been scanned in the steps are is that they would go to you mentioned, decide or portal sign in, be authenticated, and they will be able to retrieve that document
spk_1: 13:48
exactly right.
spk_0: 13:49
Yeah. Can you talk a bit about the way in which they retrieve it like, what is the searchlight? Because I've seen some storage programs that you know, it's that the search is a little bit hard, and you have to know, like exactly what's to search for. In order to pull up that document, House is gonna look like it's not there. So what type of search capability does the software have?
spk_1: 14:12
Well, we'll give you the ability to search for either structured index fields. And all that means is you tell us ahead of time. What do you normally used to search for? A particular document is offender number is about true number. You know, we can set that up. We can have our data entry. People key those in so that these air fully searchable fields. But in it addition to that, we also do up character recognition, which simply takes its a computer software that looks at scanned image and and translates that into searchable text. Basically, picture a, uh, J peg file compared to a word document you can't search Ajay pig picture file. But you can search for documents. We provide that capability to so that if you're looking for a specific keyboard that might not have been typed in by our data entry people, you can still access something, but we're
spk_0: 15:03
great. So if we search by a key word or a phrase that's within the document, that document will still come up. Even if
spk_1: 15:13
I don't
spk_0: 15:13
know the name. Yeah, exactly. All right. So you talked a little bit about security. So, as part of the controls, you know, I'm all about reducing fraud and one of the issues is, you know, security of sensitive information. And I've always talking about, you know, vendor sensitive information on the vendor records such as the tax I D, which in some cases can be a Social Security number. Or, you know, even banking details and e r piece to have the ability to limit access to that sensitive information. And some of it is full based, and some of them even have the access to mask. You know, some of that dad, except for the last 45 digits. So that least privileged access and the ability to mask our he hearts of security in the air piece. So how this tier five Ensure that least privileged access from within a client's company and then also between your clients. How do you ensure security and that least privilege access
spk_1: 16:21
what we will mimic. Whatever your car key system. Whatever security measures are in your air P system to allow world based document access, you can set up within our software with same types of things, giving people access to certain documents, document reaction if necessary to cover up a tax i D number of necessary we kind of give me all of those all of those capabilities built into our software. But again, will will mimic our provide whatever you currently have in terms of documents, security, either electronic or paper within the Elektronik on our side.
spk_0: 16:58
If I heard you correctly, you do have the ability to limit who can access specific documents. Yes, okay. And that's good because we want the accounts payable Vendor team to be able to see the W Ni. But we don't need anyone else to see it in the company. So that's perfect. So what I was trying to get to with the between your clients Waas You have a separate like database or server or something for each client
spk_1: 17:25
we never have ever had an issue with, with a client accidentally seen another clients, documents or data that that has never happened. And the reason that hasn't happened is because of the security measures that go on the ones that are built into our software, the ones that our database administrators provide, and then also the security physical security at our data center. I believe different customers are on their own virtual machines, and that just means they're separated, not physically, but the data is completely inaccessible between two different heights. So again, that's that's physically built into and built into the system as well as built in the at the software level.
spk_0: 18:06
Just can't extend in that security topic out a little bit more. I got to ask. We talked earlier about you know, we have thes boxes of records and we're going to give them to tear five to digitize. What do you do with those hard copies? How do you destroy those?
spk_1: 18:23
It's up to the customer really? Waken return the documents most often. We will store those on site for about 90 days at no charge weaken. Store them for longer for a small charge or we can shred them and it's really get to the customer. Usually when a customer just starts, they are looking for a certain level of comfort with the scanned images as opposed to the paper. But once they've used the system for a couple of months, there used to accessing the images there used to finding what you're looking for. Then they say, Okay, you know what? After their scan, though, it hadn't just travel.
spk_0: 18:59
Okay, so That's great. A lot of good information on digitizing documents for that business continuity disaster recovery plan. So where can the audience go to connect with you and then to find more information on Tier five?
spk_1: 19:16
Well, they can contact me directly at give you the phone number. It is 7143967080 we are based in California. But we have coverage throughout the country, mainly on the Western United States. But again, I could be reached any time in 71 for 3967080 and I happen to take any calls. And anybody just has questions to I'm here. Just consider be kind of an asset for you.
spk_0: 19:47
I got it. All right. Well, thanks, Keith. Thanks for being on the podcast today and make We'll have you back once we get out of this whole pandemic and talk business continuity again.
spk_1: 19:57
But I would really appreciate that. And thanks, Debra. Really appreciate the chance to talk to you and really enjoyed this time together. Everybody stay safe and we'll get through this.
spk_0: 20:08
So thank you, everyone. I hope you enjoyed my interview with Keith Woz. Knock on the 81st episode of The Putting the AP and Happy Podcast, where accounts payable teams are empowered to protect the vendor master file from fraud. Don't forget to check the show notes for the links mentioned in the podcast. And if you enjoy this episode, consider subscribing and writing a review of my podcast on the platform that you used to listen. Stay happy.