Loaded: The Hahn Ready Mix Podcast
A podcast for the employees of Hahn Ready Mix
Loaded: The Hahn Ready Mix Podcast
42. Automating Processes with Requordit's Shaun Garrison
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Andrea and Griff are joined by Jeff and Shaun Garrison with Requordit to chat about automating processes, eliminating paper and constructive criticism.
Welcome to Loaded, the Hahn Ready Mix Podcast with Andrea Meyer, Griffin Hahn. We are a little nervous today without producer Lex.
SPEAKER_03It's it's it could be sketchy.
SPEAKER_00Who knows? Who knows if this will actually go out?
SPEAKER_03Probably not even recording right now.
SPEAKER_00Luckily, we have Jeff here with us and a special guest. So tell us tell us who we're talking to today.
SPEAKER_02Well, first I would like to thank you for welcoming me back into the podcast room.
SPEAKER_03Welcoming, welcoming might be too strong to be worried about it. I feel like it was more of like a uh no, I'm doing I'm in the under the seven. I'm forcing, forcing, and and we were relenting.
SPEAKER_02Well, I thought we were an executive team, and so far I haven't really been invited to participate in the podcast but one time. And we set records in a 24-hour period of number of people that listened.
SPEAKER_03Those have been exceeded since then. I think it was just, you know, just a one-off. So okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, we do have a special guest here, Sean Garrison from Record It On Base Highland. Uh lots of companies. And I will actually let him get into detail about who he is and what his company does.
SPEAKER_03Well, let's do some announcements first, and then we'll dive into that. Is that all right? Sounds good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Why did we introduce it more? We're gonna be doing episodes.
SPEAKER_00John, we are excited to talk to you, but let's get through uh the announcements first. I first want to say we did follow through last week with our promise to have the Christmas truck decorated and out of the country. It looks great by Monday afternoon. So really appreciate the guys that worked on that uh here and at Edwards and Geneseo. Their truck looks awesome also. So really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_03Um one thing I wanted to uh everybody probably by the time this podcast drops will know this, but in your check from last week, you'll notice there's something a little extra. And listen, we all know that this year has been a challenging one for us. The economy's just been slow, the work hasn't been there. Um, but we wanted to make sure that we did something to thank everybody for their hard work this year. And it's not the same as what it's been some years in the past. And so uh I'm regretful that that's the case, but we we did what we could. And on that note, we've kind of decided that we're just gonna kind of skip the Christmas luncheon this year just to make sure we could put whatever we could towards uh Christmas bonuses. So anyway, um thank you all for everything you've done. You've earned that, and um hopefully better years to come where we can be more fruitful with that.
SPEAKER_02There's actually two different checks. So one went in today and one about your regular check will get in tomorrow. So you should see two different checks. Gotcha.
SPEAKER_00I've had a few questions about unemployment specifically in Iowa. I know a lot of people are starting to file their claims and and work through that process. And and I just want to uh recognize and apologize for what a mess that is. I don't know who was in charge of creating it, but that system is tough. But there's a couple specific things that I I learned that I wanted to share with people. The first thing is they started a look back period in Iowa that looks at your previous five quarters of work, but eliminates your most recent quarter. So for people most, you know, our people worked the most in the most recent quarter. So they're taking that out of consideration. There is an appeal process where you can swap out those quarters. So if somebody is really, you know, hampered by that, let me know and I can try and help you walk through that. And the other thing is there's a requirement for a job search after four weeks. If if you haven't, if you have four weeks of claims, then they'll try and tell you that you have to do a job search. I go through a process every year to make sure that they know that we're exempt from that because we're seasonal construction business. Our people should not have to go look for new jobs knowing that they have a job to come back to.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_00Um, so if someone gets that letter that says you need to do a job search, let me know, and then I can work through on our side to help you get through that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I had one more kind of just fun. Uh I keep getting emails from somebody that is um kind of campaigning to be a guest on this podcast. I assume they want to be paid, but it's pretty, I mean, I feel like this is not a Han employment. No, no, it's it's uh it's just somebody that's like off LinkedIn that's sending a lot of things. See this, Sean?
SPEAKER_04What a what a special privilege you have to be here.
SPEAKER_03So yeah, we we've I feel like we've made it, right? If people are like campaigning, be like, I want to be uh a guest in your podcast. It's I don't I don't know who this person is or what they might have to say this topical, but uh just thought it was funny. He liked it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I have another follow-up from our AI episodes. We've done a couple different uh versions of that, and I'm I'm sure we'll talk about that some today, too. But I was very amused this week that Darren used AI to help troubleshoot a printer, which is so funny. Like he prides himself on being able to fix any printer issue, and he got stumped and actually it worked. So now he's converted.
SPEAKER_03Five seconds. He went from AI non-user to AI super user in just like win one day. Yes.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. Uh Sam was using it this week. You know, you you challenged people in that episode, and I think people are really uh trying it out. Sam used it for uh the scale in musketeen, is you know, something that if you don't use it every day, you don't know exactly how to do it. So he create used AI to create a procedure for running the scale. Uh Zach used it to help with his own review and some other reviews. So great. I was had in my notes here that I was hoping Lex would be here because I think he's one of the last holdouts. So I was gonna put him on the spot.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like the youngest person in the office is the resistor.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03All right, great. Well, let's dive into it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, now we're ready. Sean, tell us who are you and what are you doing here?
SPEAKER_01I uh come to see you guys and talk about OnBase and the renewal and um what we got going on there. So I've been here at uh record it for about five years, um, supporting customers, uh about 55 different customers, um, across Ready Mix and aggregate. So working with Command and the other dispatch softwares, um providing solutions.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, tell us a little bit about you, your where you came from, how you got here, family, all that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I've been in the content management uh realm for about 22 years. Um started on the implementation side, professional services. So doing implementations of uh capture processes, um, capturing invoice uh documents and and data off of that. And uh about six years into that, I went over to the dark side of sales and um have been in sales ever since. So here I am.
SPEAKER_00So and you're from you live in Dallas, is that right?
SPEAKER_01I live in Dallas, yep. It's uh very cold here. I'm trying to uh stay warm. But uh my trip ends in Minnesota tomorrow, so it's uh I think a high of five degrees. I don't know how I'm gonna make it.
SPEAKER_00You'll be ready to go home then, huh?
SPEAKER_01I yeah, I'm already ready.
SPEAKER_00So well, we appreciate you being here and coming to to see us and help us out and joining us on the podcast. I guess Jeff can jump in on this question too, but a lot of people listening to this podcast will have no idea what OnBase is or what we do with it. So maybe you guys can really simplify and break down how we use this product at Han.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'll just jump right in. So on the accounts receivable side, so sending all the tickets um uh from all the different uh dispatch software and uh the invoices, uh matching those up and distributing those out to your customer base so that they can um pay you guys. Um and then on the accounts payable side, um all your vendor invoices come in through OnBase and we um help automate that process.
SPEAKER_03I kind of view it as like it's the war on paper, right? Where we're trying to not have paper processes anywhere.
SPEAKER_01And on base is the central if you look at where OnBase started, it was very paper centric. Um and you see now the shift to a digital format. So I still have customers with a lot of paper, um, and you scan those and and you do that, but then you have the digital tickets and the those devices. So um just automating and and bringing all that stuff into one you know interface. So paper, digital. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Is there any way you can take a war on Griffin's paper? Because he loves paper and uh would continue to use paper for everything, I think. I don't use that much paper.
SPEAKER_00Too much. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So just uh can I yeah, just to kind of give a uh an example of how I use it personally here at Hahn to make to help people out there understand, I get there are workflow processes inside of OnBase, so an invoice will get scanned in. If you're part of the approval team of that invoice, it comes into sort of a dashboard for you to click on, look at, and approve. And so those are the kinds of things that I pretty simple, but things that I do in OnBase versus somebody having to hand me a paper invoice, me look at it, initial it, and then hand it back to somebody. So that sort of happens automatically through a workflow.
SPEAKER_03Another thing that's really topical for a lot of the drivers listening to this is you know, you turn your load ticket in to the plant after every load. The plant manager scans that in and it goes to Onbase. So that if there's a problem with that concrete later on, that's where we can go look it up. We log into OnBase, we have the kind of a file repository of every single batch ticket that's ever been scanned in there, and we can go look um and find the batch weights from that ticket or any other pertinent information. So yeah, so that's why we turn those in because it goes there. We don't keep those tickets. They they go in the trash after or get shredded after.
SPEAKER_00But um That's exactly what I wanted to get to. And the uh the haul tickets also and the all the different size uh BOLs that we get from all the different uh quarries and cement terminals, those all get scanned in too.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00It's important and we use it all the time, even if you don't realize it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and those all match up with all your invoices as well. And so you can see in on base, you know, all of the associated tickets with an invoice, um, both on the AR and AP side.
SPEAKER_00So good. I know that you're like you said, you have 55 different customers that you get to go see, and I know you get to go to a bunch of different conferences. So I was hoping you could it's a two-part question. I was hoping you could talk to us a little bit about the cool things that you see happening out there and what's coming. And then also from your company, what's c what's coming in the future?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think one of the coolest things, and you guys touched on it uh on one of your other episodes, is the the AI side of it, right? Um what these companies are doing with uh with AI, just mixed design um is something that that I'm starting to see a lot of of people uh leverage some AI for. Um and then just the automation side of it. So the capture of invoices, we're looking at doing some stuff like that, our technology as well. So how we can automate these things with all the different AI uh engines that are out there. Um ChatGBT you know is just scratching the surface. I think, you know, Gemini and uh Claude and and all those other engines. So you're starting to see more companies shift to to using those platforms. Um and you know, what we like to say at recorded is that you uh enable somebody to focus on higher value tasks, right? So you're automating processes so that you know the Marlis of the world can go out and use her knowledge of the business to make an impact on on another side instead of doing data entry. So great.
SPEAKER_02You're looking at me. How are you guys actively uh implementing AI or working on AI at record it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so one of the things that we're focusing on right now is uh using AI agents to help automatically geo code invoices. So if you think an invoice comes in with about 15, 20 different line items on it, um an individual is actually going in manually and coding those um to get them into the ERP. So we're using an AI agent to go and remember how that was coded last time. So when it sees it, it just automatically codes it. And I think what you're gonna see is that's gonna cut down the length of time that it takes, the keystrokes that it takes for somebody to get an invoice in the door approved and ultimately paid. Um so that's one of the things that we're focusing on right now. And then there's just a a number of uh other things, you know, using uh basic basically making your your on-base repository a Google-like search. So then you can ask it questions about you know what what's in an invoice, you know, is this should this have use tax or should this have sales tax, stuff like that? So identifying that stuff.
SPEAKER_00So I like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's it's it is exciting. I know it probably sounds boring to a lot of people out there, but it does make our business more efficient and easier to run and um easier to get reporting out and in the end, easier to get invoices out to customers and pay bills and those kinds of things. So um without it, um, you know, that we would be a real manual paper type company, and that's just not where the world's headed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's definitely a tool in your tool belt, right? Um you're never gonna replace the people side of that, but uh the people can use that tool um to help automate and make their day-to-day life easier.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Where do you see the biggest challenges for for you and your group to compete moving forward with their competitors are out there and trying to remain relevant to businesses like ours?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just uh always coming out and and trying to think of what's next, what's new, you know, staying on top of that and and kind of the trends in the market, right? So right now you've got a lot of people looking at different dispatch technologies, um, making sure that we're up to speed on the integrations and and you know, uh kind of moving the the needle forward with those different uh platforms, um, ensuring that we can fully integrate um across the board, right? Because not one of my customers has the exact same process, right? You guys process invoices, but you're gonna do it differently than every every other customer out there. So just understanding you know your puzzle pieces um and then how we put that puzzle together for you so that that it works for your business. Um that's kind of what we do.
SPEAKER_02So you don't it's not sort of an out-of-the-box solution that you provide. You uh do you do some manipulation to your systems to uh make them work for a different company?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we have to. So it's everybody's unique. Um every configuration is what we call it. So we you know, I've got, like I said, 50 some odd customers that I support, and I don't have one probably the same across the board that you know has the same exact process. So the ability for our software is just highly configurable to match your business process instead of making your business process match what's capable of software.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think even within our processes evolve over time. So we're not even doing things the same way now that we were a couple years ago. So it's appreciate that that can change with us as we go.
SPEAKER_02So you're able to provide value even outside of the software, going in to talk to companies like ours because you see how other companies do it. You're able to make suggestions in that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I see this work, I see this not work. Um, you know, some of those type of conversations. So the company A is doing it like this. And, you know, one thing that, you know, I got you in touch with the guys at Pharma, right? And you guys had conversations with how they're using their ERP and the integration and stuff like that. So just uh being able to connect people and and let you guys talk about what works and what doesn't work.
SPEAKER_02But you still have to deal with hard-headed people like me who think they have it all in the right way, right? We have all the answers.
SPEAKER_00That uh that sounds like a good transition point. Uh is there anything that you want to tell us about, Sean, that we didn't ask you about yet before I move on.
SPEAKER_01No, I just uh I really appreciate the relationship I have with you guys. Um, Jeff, you've been fun to work with. So challenging, I'll say that. But uh I think we we have a good relationship and I feel like you can bounce your ideas off of me and you know um we can come to a conclusion or a solution right that works for you guys.
SPEAKER_02Yep, I agree. It's been a it's been a good relationship. I think there's still a lot of things I'd like to see happen. Um, but I know working together we can get there. Um I think part of my frustration is the time it takes to get things working in the ways that they should work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that's a challenge across the board. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03I have a question. Is with your exposure to so many different companies, are are there things that we do that are are kind of best in class? Or they we might not even realize it, but things we do really.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03Of course. And it's not for me. I don't have anything to do with this, right? Uh but I'm just curious, like I, you know, it I'm I'm sure we could ask the same other side of the coin.
SPEAKER_00What's different about us?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I think it's uh the way that you guys are integrated with your ERP um is unique. Um I don't have many people that are integrated with Vista the way that you guys are. So just getting information out of OnBase into um your ERP is is pretty unique. I've got people that are still manually keying that stuff in, um, you know, as opposed to dropping a file and it picking it up. Um so I think that's that's huge. And all you're what you're doing there is you're eliminating the the touch points to get information from here to you know point A to point B.
SPEAKER_02So just so everybody out there understands what an ERP is, because it's I don't think a lot of people probably do. It's just our computer system that does all of our accounting. Um really that's what it is. That's the simplest way to put it.
SPEAKER_00Do you have any other phishing questions before we move on?
SPEAKER_03Uh no, nope, I'm good.
SPEAKER_00All right. I have uh we do a segment sometimes. We try to do it every time, but it depends on if we have questions or not. But it's called loaded questions. And this is for everyone to answer, but it is review season here, right? So the question is how do you receive critical feedback? What are you what are you thinking to yourself when someone's giving you critical feedback and how do you take that and move forward with it?
SPEAKER_03You're looking at me, so I'll answer first. And most of the time, I'm why is Andrea coming at me like this? It's normally the I get a lot of critical feedback or constructive feedback, let's say, here at work and then also at home. And I think I do a better job of taking that here than I do at home. Uh but for me, I I, you know, particularly in my position, I feel a lot of pressure to be the very best that I actually can, you know, that that I'm capable of, right? To to fulfill the needs of everybody else in the organization. Um and I always have this concern in the back of my head, like, what am I not doing that I ought to be doing that I it's not even on my radar, right? Or I haven't thought about. I don't do a lot of stuff kind of half-assed, but I'm worried about what what's what am I not seeing, you know? And so a lot of times when there's feedback like, hey, you could be doing this different or you could be doing this better, or this is something you should do, uh, I'm a lot of times I'm desperate for that because I want to get better at this, right? Um and I want this to be an awesome place to work. And so the better I can do in my role is gonna have a better lead to a better experience for everybody else. So um I'm eager for that constructive criticism. Again, in the office, not necessarily. I'm pretty content with the way I load the dishwasher, but you know. So anyway, uh yeah, that's that's my answer.
SPEAKER_00Go ahead.
SPEAKER_02Is it my turn now? Sure. I also say, why is Andrea coming out and stop using your Jedi mind tricks? No, I sort of look at it as um it's hard to it's hard to make perfect any better. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Um You know, I I really enjoy uh the team that we have here. So just to digress a little bit, our executive team with Griffin and Andrea, and I've never had that that where I can bounce ideas off of and where I've, you know, I can be kind of hard-headed, which I don't think is a secret to anybody that's met me at home or here. Um but I do like that we get constructive criticism from everybody and that there people have suggestions, and I think it's all in how you take it. It's not, they're not saying you're doing it necessarily wrong. They're saying, hey, there might be a better way. And so as an accountant, we constantly we constantly have people coming in and looking at things. So you sort of get used to people saying, well, you're not doing this right. But I sort of enjoy it. I'm kind of like Griffin. I I want to be better at what I do. I want to be better at communicating with our employees and specifically the ones that report up through me. Um and I want to be better at giving them support. And so to take criticism or constructive criticism, criticism is such a bad word. Um, to take construction from somebody or suggestions from somebody is important to uh become who you can be. Um I also take it at home all the time and probably need it. Um so Griffin might actually want to take to heart what's being told of him at home, even loading the dishwasher, which I got lectured about the other night.
SPEAKER_00So how about you, Sean?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I I get it all the time. You know, working with uh all my customers, there's always a way to improve, right? And and getting suggestions from Jeff, you know. Um I think you gave me three or four today, right?
SPEAKER_02Uh of the things I always try to help, Sean. I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01So um I think at first I struggled with it, right? Is is what am I doing wrong? Um, you know, instead of thinking, you know, like Griffin said, to be better, right? I think we all strive to be the best that we can be. So just taking that uh criticism to heart and really trying to uh not only hear it, but uh apply it to my day-to-day life and when I get it.
SPEAKER_03So I think it's also important to know when you're receiving constructive criticism, to put yourself in the person that's giving its shoes. And one of the things we talked about with Steve Ott when we did that leadership development was that not giving constructive criticism is really mean, right? If somebody's not doing something right or not meeting standards or could be better, and you don't help them see that, that's cruel. You're doing a disservice to them, yeah. Somebody having something on their face. Right. So you don't tell them that it's on their face. Exactly. If you view it through that paradigm that, like, oh, they're wanting to help me. They're not doing this to be mean to me. If they didn't like you, if they didn't want you to be better, they wouldn't tell you. Right. And so that I think that's an important thing to remember that it's normally coming out of a um a place of compassion and teamwork. And like we we're in this together. Let's let's get there together. And and so I think that's really important.
SPEAKER_00Good job, you guys. I don't have any critical feedback about the way you answered that question.
SPEAKER_02We want to know what you how you take it.
SPEAKER_00Uh well, you know how I take it.
SPEAKER_02Um Exactly, but I want to hear your answer.
SPEAKER_00Uh I think I'll reiterate kind of what you said, but you especially with our team here and even at the manager level, I think we're super, super direct with our feedback. And I happen to like that. Like you said, you have to assume positive intent, assume the person's trying to help you. Um, but I do like that we're we're pretty consistent and pretty direct in how we're doing it. And I think that might be the hard part about like reviews and getting feedback in the review. You know, you you work really hard all year and your interactions might be limited, and then you get to the end of the year and you're feeling like, oh my, I I mostly do great work here, which is probably true.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But there is, you know, there's a category for everyone on the review that there's like, oh, you could your attendance could be better, or your truck could be cleaner, or you know, there there's there's always something that that we're gonna point out in that review. And so I think sometimes it's hard to take that and for sure.
SPEAKER_03And I think the review process is inherently kind of flawed, right? Yeah. That absolutely you can't distill a year's worth of work, effort, accomplishments, and mistakes into a 20-minute meeting. Yeah. Right. It just you can't. So you you have to hit uh the the kind of the the headlines, and the headlines are the peaks and the troughs. Right. And you that that midline of of the normal performance, it's it's hard to capture that sometimes. So it does make it seem like you get to the extremes in a review, but uh, you know, that's that's where kind of daily feedback, Jeff. We were talking about this earlier. Daily feedback is is almost more important because it's it's more timely and it it can be more impactful.
SPEAKER_00You know, we're always looking for ways to do that more. I think we've done a little better this year with the journaling and weekly scorecards and things like that. So we're always looking to improve.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00All right, you want to do something fun? I have a quick holiday rapid fire questions.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna do holiday questions next week. Oh, we shouldn't. Well, that sounds fun. Don't take the fun away from Christmas.
SPEAKER_00We can do we can do multiple. I bet yours is not the same as mine. Okay, there's gonna this is like a this or that or a one-word answer, and we're all you I'll ask the questions and you can answer quickly. Ready? Are you an early or late holiday shopper?
SPEAKER_03Late, late, late.
SPEAKER_00No surprise. All men in the room, late shoppers. Uh do you prefer white lights or colored lights?
SPEAKER_03White lights, and I I would expound on this if I'm giving up.
SPEAKER_00One-word answers are so hard for Griffith.
SPEAKER_03White white lights. What's your So when I was growing up in my dad's neighborhood, they had not it wasn't like an there's no HOA, but they had a uh unwritten rule that they all understood. They every house only used white lights. And when it would snow, it would be so pretty driving into the neighborhood. It was just gorgeous because every house was the same. And then somebody moved in and put colored lights up, and then half the houses are and it just it looks doesn't look nice anymore. And so Thank God we got that picture out of it.
SPEAKER_00Uh ugly Christmas sweaters or Christmas PJs?
SPEAKER_03Sweaters. Sweaters. PJs.
SPEAKER_00Oh, nice. Uh do you wrap your gifts or do you use gift bags?
SPEAKER_01Wrap. Wrap. It's a loaded question. That's a loaded question.
SPEAKER_00I just got Does someone else wrap your gifts for you?
SPEAKER_01No. So this year I bought off of the TikTok shop the wrapping bags. Oh. I don't know if you've seen them. So my wife bought those. Did she?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's what we do. TikTok shopping bags.
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. The question is no longer relevant thanks to TikTok shops. Uh real or fake tree?
SPEAKER_03Before I had kids, I was a real tree loyalist. And with kids, fake tree. Oh boy. Yeah, fake tree. Gotta go fake tree.
SPEAKER_00All right. Uh giving or gifting? Oh, I said that wrong. Getting or giving gifts.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I'm a terrible giver of gifts. I can't think of things, so I'll I'll get it. I'll take it. Giving. Oh, I like to give.
SPEAKER_00Good. Uh last question. What's your favorite Christmas movie?
SPEAKER_03See, this is gonna be in my thing next week. But uh the only answer is die hard. Elf. Christmas vacation.
SPEAKER_00Oh, very good. Well, look forward to another holiday episode next week. We'll see if Griffin does it better than I did.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Am I gonna be invited back to that one? It depends.
SPEAKER_00Maybe you can be there instead of me.
SPEAKER_02Anyway.
SPEAKER_00Sean, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll be back again next week.
SPEAKER_03Thank you.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.