BluePoint Solutions Turns Document Management into an Art With Tangible Results for Credit Unions

VISTA, Calif. – The term “paperless” is thrown around a lot these days. Somehow with the advent of the Web, wireless and other new technologies, more and more businesses are learning that paper isn’t all it’s cracked up to be when it comes to efficiency. Bluepoint Solutions founder and CEO Hal Tilbury has nothing against paper in general, but says when a credit union reduces their paper trail, something very exciting can happen – they can become more productive, serve members better, and save money. Tilbury said Bluepoint got into the document management business because it saw a real need. He would hear of credit unions wanting to reduce documents for reasons such as disaster recovery, where an electronic back-up could become a lifesaver for a credit union; or just a way for credit unions to get rid of boxes of paper stored at their branches. Tilbury said those are noble enough reasons for electronic document management, but that’s only part of the story. “The ability to enhance member services, improve employee productivity through the elimination of the paper bottleneck. To improve return on assets, lower operating expenses; we believe those items are far more mission critical. No one ever thought about using document management in accomplishing those objectives,” said Tilbury. So Bluepoint set out to use all of its document management tools to achieve these goals. Tilbury said the following is necessary to turn document management into a productivity booster: *Capture documents immediately at the point-of-entry, *Capture any kind of document, whether it be paper or an electronic form, *Capture without having to do manual indexing, *Make documents available immediately organization-wide. “It’s in the first 48 hours of a documents’ life, that most of the useful work on a document is done,” said Tilbury, so a CU has to ensure the document isn’t just imaged, but that it’s available to be extracted organization-wide in a way that is intuitive. The key is to make document management about the member. Tilbury said 80% of all credit union documents are related to members. The system should be built around the member, creating a member centric file, a sort of electronic filing cabinet for each member. So how can going paperless increase member service? Tilbury offered up one of one of the most common transactions in a credit union, at the teller line. He gave an example of a member depositing three checks and then wanting $30 cash back from the teller. The teller goes into core system, enters that transaction through their teller platform, accept the checks, distributes the cash, prints out the two-part teller receipt, and collects the signature on the teller receipt. “We don’t create a two-part teller receipt. We create a one-part receipt we give to the member. Our teller receipt with e-signature is archived. We’ve (electronically) stapled the checks to the teller receipt. No indexing is done, all indexing is done by the teller in creating the teller transaction. We know branch, time, transactions code, check numbers,” said Tilbury. The only paper left, the check, is batched up and sent out to the CU’s item processor that night in a cash letter. More importantly, said Tilbury, all the information from that transaction is incorporated into the member’s file. If the member calls a few minutes later wondering who the payees was on one of the checks, a member service rep can pull it up. It may sound overly simplistic, but Bluepoint’s Executive Vice President Steve Powell believes that removing the paper trail equals more productivity. “If I’m not shuffling papers, not looking for a loan file on someone’s desk from the member who came in at lunch time, not moving paper, I should be able to do other things,” said Powell. Tilbury said industry studies show employees spend an hour and a half to two hours a day shuffling papers. “If we could reduce it to an hour, that’s at least a half hour (more) for every employee in that credit union,” he said Powell believes document management is also a cross-sell tool. For example, if the member file has recently been updated with say the closed loan docs for a couple auto loans, that tells a story that could lead to new business. “It’s graphically presented in a way that it’s very evident that maybe they’ve come into money,” said Powell, so a CU rep could cross-sell a new auto loan or maybe a CD. Bluepoint has a feature in its receipt manager product that has a pull down menu in the interface that can give tellers cross-sell suggestions. Tellers are notorious for not wanting to sell members, but Powell said it doesn’t have to be that way. “You don’t have to cross-sell, but ask a simple question. Would you be interested in so and so,” he said. If they are, the member can log a note in Bluepoint’s system that will prompt an MSR to call the member or send them information. If they refuse, that can be logged as well. Document management must be customizable, said Powell. He said if the docs are just for HR files, BluePoint can create HR user groups. “If you’re not in that group, you won’t see the icon. For collections, there are all the collections documents. We have the granularity to do that,” he said. “I know one CEO who has his own group. He scans all of his correspondence, attaches word indices. He can control every correspondence with drag and drop. Allows him to drag and drop e-mails, voice mails,” said Powell. This particular CEO is working to get rid of all the paper in his desk draws – and then maybe even the desk draws. Bluepoint has CU clients ranging from $40 million to over $1 billion. It has approximately 40 CU clients. Tilbury said the company’s sweet spot so far has been CUs in the $100 to $500 million range, but stressed the product is very scalable. Admittedly, Tilbury isn’t thrilled with the company’s penetration with credit unions so far, but he thinks it’s because Bluepoint is singing such a different tune than other vendors- that document management is about productivity and performance, not just backing up for a disaster or getting rid of boxes of paper files. He fears that Bluepoint is put in the same box with other document firms, even though their philosophy is so different. Tilbury said it’s sometimes a challenge getting its product in front of the upper layers of a CU’s management, but once it does, their message usually resonates. If timing is everything, Bluepoint may soon see increased business with the advent of Check 21. Bluepoint already has the processes in place for Check 21, including allowing teller capture of items, teller correction of items, scanning of MICR lines – all things that are necessary to prepare images to be sent to item processors. One of the discussions that has been going on among corporates is bandwidth issues from batched check images coming over once a day. Powell said the answer is a real-time stream of documents all day, so bandwidth won’t be a factor, which Bluepoint is prepared to do. A credit union looking to experience a document management makeover from Bluepoint, can expect a process ranging from four weeks to as long as 12 weeks. On the hardware side, credit unions would likely have to add signature pads, scanners, and upgraded printers. [email protected]