MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. -- For Listerhill Credit Union, a small dose of technology is easing a big pain in the back.
The $415 million credit union is using TotaleReceipts, part of the document management suite of solutions from Integrated Media Management, to automate and store documents from the teller line in ways that save paper and save lower backs.
The receipts print out from a device about the size of a calculator, "making it much easier. We're handling small rolls instead of big boxes of duplicate paper that our tellers were hurting their backs just lifting," said Jerry Sprinkle, lending supervisor/ITT liaison at 63,000-member Listerhill.
The same approach is being used on the lending side of the business, with a 640-foot-square room full of files expected to slowly empty as the documents are scanned or sit there until they're old enough to be discarded, Sprinkle said.
Listerhill CU has been using TotaleReceipts since August 2007, rolling it out branch by branch across the enterprise. "At first we met resistance from the staff, but we told them to give it a try, and now they're giddy over it," said Listerhill's training coordinator, Debbie Goins.
Building on that experience, the CU now is one of the first users of TotaleAtlas version 4.3, a document preparation solution that captures signatures electronically and stores the documents as easily searchable PDFs.
The new solution uses a workflow engine called DocQ that also allows coapplicants to sign at different times and at different branches, and the documents can be segregated so that each applicant's information appears only on his or her individual documents.
"That's our differentiator," said John Levy, executive vice president at New Jersey-based IMM. "We have a saying that if an office is 80% electronic, it's still 100% paper because eventually if you have to sign paper anywhere, including at the end of the process, you lose a lot of the benefits of going paperless."
Levy said about 60 of his company's 285 or so TotaleAtlas clients are now on the new version, and that feedback is being gathered for future iterations.
"They're really our think tank," the IMM executive said of the company's end users. "We're not deep in the trenches. When we were down there with Listerhill and met with their crew, we took a lot of notes, and we don't throw them away."
At Listerhill, Sprinkle said in addition to tellers and few people on the accounting side, about 30 people are currently using the IMM software at his credit union's 14 regular branches and its new operation that serves as an alternative to payday lenders.
In addition to new efficiencies, which include eliminating many of the errors that come with manual entries, the software's SQL database makes administrative logging and other chores more seamless, Sprinkle said, and lessens the need for physical storage space.
"This was a good time for us to go forward with this. We're running out of space and we really needed some kind of imaging platform to help out the one we had on the member services side," Sprinkle said. "In less than a month, you can already really see how much it's going to cut down on filing.
In addition to saving space and money, there's also the green conservation message that goes with using less paper, he added. "It even adds to the cleanliness of our branches," Sprinkle said.
Levy at IMM added, "From the 40,000-foot-view, our mantra at IMM is to streamline what's historically been a paper-based process.
"Yeah, you're going to save money and gain new efficiencies in not using and transporting as much paper, but you're also going a long way in terms of being more environmentally friendly."
"You're making far less of a carbon footprint at the same time as you're gaining new efficiencies and lowering your costs."
--mrapport@cutimes.com
