The traditional family-run company Viertel Motoren specialises in the repair and maintenance of combustion engines, transmissions, axles and control cabinets, particularly in the areas of rail vehicles, construction and agricultural machinery, inland navigation, power generation and commercial vehicles. A spare parts store with over 18,000 mechanical and electronic spare parts as well as the project planning and supply of complete emergency power supplies round off the offer.
The roots of the company go back to 1928; it was rebuilt in Nuremberg in 1948 and today employs around 130 people. Further locations in Stuttgart and Leipzig ensure the flexible deployment of 35 mobile service technicians throughout Germany. For Viertel Motoren, the focus is always on offering each customer individual problem solutions and implementing them professionally with state-of-the-art equipment and optimally trained personnel.
bitfarm-Archiv DMS at Viertel Motoren GmbH
bitfarm-Archiv Document Management was implemented at Viertel Motoren in 2016. In the previous evaluation, the open source DMS was particularly convincing due to its unbeatable price-performance ratio, explains Rudolf Simon, Head of IT and Communication Technology.
Around 80 employees now work with the document management system, and the digital archive comprises around 244,000 documents. Incoming and outgoing invoices, shipping documents and e-mails are archived. In addition, payroll accounting stores the employees' expense reports in a separate area of the archive in order to guarantee the prescribed retention periods. The "Projects and Quality" department also uses part of the digital archive to store construction and work documents.
"The bitfarm-Archiv support is outstanding. Always competent. Always friendly. Always a solution ready. Always an open ear, even for unusual requirements."
Rudolf Simon, Head of IT and Communication Technology, Viertel Motoren GmbH
Optimised Document Processes
The processing of incoming invoices was considerably accelerated by the introduction of bitfarm-Archiv. All invoices, delivery documents and e-mails from the three locations are scanned immediately upon receipt and stored in a central archive. They are then automatically sent to the responsible employees for further processing on the basis of defined workflow rules. Of course, this is much faster and safer than transporting and distributing paper documents.
Before the introduction of the bitfarm-Archiv DMS , supplier invoices in paper form were occasionally lost or left in stacks of documents. Since all incoming invoices are scanned into the document management system immediately after receipt, reminders from suppliers have decreased significantly. Even incorrectly filed documents can be retrieved quickly and conveniently using the high-performance full-text search of the open source DMS. Discount losses are also almost completely avoided, since the financial accounting department always has an overview of all invoices that still have to be processed.
Communication und Transparency
The respective processing status of an invoice can be viewed by all employees involved at any time. The graphical comment functions of the software are used for this purpose. Information on the processing status can be noted directly on the document on a type of notesheet. The internal communication regarding an invoice has also been improved by the fact that a link can be sent with references to the respective document. In addition, all changes or work steps that the document has undergone can be seamlessly traced using the document history. This creates transparency and saves time.
Fast and flexible
The employees at Viertel Motoren particularly appreciate the easy-to-use interface of the bitfarm-Archiv DMS, which even new users can use after a short briefing.
In addition, the system convinces with a fast and powerful search in individual archive areas or in the entire archive.
Due to the flexibility of the DMS, the integration into already existing systems, such as OfficeLine for example, was also possible without any problems.
Open for Individual Solutions
Due to the possibility to create own workflow rules and VB programs, the document management system can easily be adapted to the individual needs of the company. At Viertel Motoren, for example, employees who only have very few incoming invoices to check are automatically notified by e-mail when new documents are available for processing.
A separate module was also created and integrated into bitfarm for the transfer of data to the financial accounting departments, which determines all the data required to generate a correct posting record. Via a link between FiBu and bitfarm-Archiv, the financial accounting staff can click on the incoming invoice in the bitfarm-Archiv Viewer and immediately edit it.
Overall, Viertel Motoren is very satisfied with bitfarm-Archiv document management - also because the quality of the support is excellent. "We would definitely opt for bitfarm-Archiv again," says Rudolf Simon.
