2008 Innovation Award Entries

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In partnership with JPMorgan Treasury Services, TAWPI launched a new program in 2008 that showcased emerging business process trends and new technologies. The TAWPI Innovation Awards recognized excellence in two categories: Payments Automation and Document/Forms Automation; presented annually to organizations that demonstrate creative business process redesign, innovative development or application of technologies leading to exceptional improvement in business performance.

Payments Automation Winner Idaho State Tax Commission, Boise, ID Key Product/Vendor: J&B Software, Inc. Download the Case Study

The Commission sought to use imaging technologies to improve its most labor intensive processes - remittances received in field offices and processing full-page tax returns. The Commission has five field offices scattered over a 2,000 square mile area spanning two time zones.

To integrate field office processing, the commission installed a remote capture, network deposit machine leveraging industry-standard servers and network operating system components, allowing for seamless integration with existing processing software. The field offices collect images of returns and checks, deposit them locally, transmit them to Boise each morning, and integrate them into the accounting system. For full-page tax form processing, both one and two dimensional barcoding is used. One-dimensional barcoding is used to identify the tax form and tax period. The addition of 2D barcoding allows for the capture of financial data from certain types of returns - bypassing any data entry function. ICR is used to identify the taxpayer, capture financial data, and group like-kind transactions within a tax type. The scanner outsorts the payments from the tax returns as it images; funds are deposited within 24 hours and all images are uploaded nightly.

Results: Each office is realizing up to two hours of time savings each
day - the equivalent of one full-time position. Switching from paper to electronic storage has saved $100,000 annually by eliminating the need for secure storage facilities to retain paper returns. Complete cost recovery is expected within three years through efficiencies, reduced storage costs, and increased revenues by audit and collection staff. This ROI does not take into account reduced fraud through the prevention of erroneous
refunds, expected at $600,000 per year.

Document & Forms Automation Winner Johnson Diversey, Sturtevant, WI Key product/vendor: A/P-Distiller from Brainware, Inc. Download the Case Study

JohnsonDiversey, Inc. (JDI), a member of the SC Johnson family of companies, is the second largest global industrial cleaning product manufacturer that employs about 12,000 employees in over 170 countries.

JDI sought to develop a comprehensive automation solution to replace an A/P process was entirely manual. The new automated, three-part process begins when invoices come into the mailroom and are scanned for the OCR data extraction process; if everything matches, the invoice information goes directly into the ERP system without any "touches" or human intervention. If there is any discrepancy, the invoice is passed to a workflow tool for any necessary corrections, completions or approvals. Once validated, it is then automatically passed to the ERP system.

Results: Cost per transaction decreased by over 30 percent, early payment discounts captured increased measurably and the number of invoices over 60 days old decreased to zero. Now 67 percent of invoices flow
directly into the ERP system without any human intervention.

2008 Innovation Awards Judges
Henry Waszkowski , Treasury Performance Group
Jill Bohlken, GMAC Mortgage
Karen Brewster, Daimler Chrysler Financial Services
Roger Garvin, DirectTV