Respond is a housing association who provide social housing to their tenants nationwide. Founded in Waterford in 1982 from Franciscan roots and membership, they have been tackling the housing crisis for over 40 years. They now have over 5,000 properties all around the country, with offices in 9 locations.

The Challenge

As a housing association and landlord, Respond has a huge amount of documents and information to keep track of from suppliers, contractors and tenants, including bills, payments, contracts and invoices They had been using a system from a UK company, which was reaching end-of-life, so they needed to replace it.

The old system had been in place for a no. of years and, although it served its purpose, it had its limitations. Tomás English, Respond’s Financial Controller, and Deirdre Whittle, Accounts Payable Lead, felt that it lacked the flexibility they required, and they also wanted a greater sense of partnership from the provider going forward.

In 2019 they set about replacing the existing system. Having considered a number of potential providers, they choose EIS because they knew that they would be able to provide them with not only an end-to-end document management system with the flexibility they needed but also, they were a local provider with over 20 years’ experience. This meant they could offer improved insights to help optimise their document related processes. A look at their existing client list further reassured them that they were in good company.

We have different requirements to other companies – although it’s an “off-the-shelf” product, they were still able to develop it for us.

Deirdre Whittle, Finance Team

Respond

Being able to call a local company and speak to somebody quite easily to develop something or to fix something made a big difference

Deirdre Whittle, Finance Team

Respond

Our Solution

Accommodated company-specific processes

As Respond deal with a diverse range of transactions from a broad range of stakeholders they needed a document management and accounts payable automation system that was capable of accommodating 4 company-specific document workflows – suppliers, utilities, reverse VAT and contractors. The TraX solution for Respond now handles all of this documentation and the related workflow tasks linked to these 4 document areas online, making the process much more efficient.

Accommodated company-specific processes

A tailored solution

One of the reasons Respond chose EIS was because they knew that the team and system were flexible and wanted to work with them to implement a solution that incorporated their list of requirements. EIS implemented core TraX functionality and also accommodated specific developments to ensure that Respond could extract maximum value from the solution.

A smoother, more transparent approval process

EIS also added a new approval process function using their TrAx workflow product. This has vastly reduced manual paper handling and admin tasks, as the team are now able to do things like send on a link to accept or reject an invoice, add in notes, view the PDF invoice and include a summary of the coding structure and a summary of the invoice on the screen for people to view. This has made the whole approval process much smoother, faster, more efficient and more transparent.

Extremely responsive

For Respond working with EIS felt like more of a partnership. They were very impressed with how easy it was to contact them. The EIS support team was always there to answer any questions they had or to help if something needed to be fixed or developed further.

A hassle-free implementation process

The initial set up was smooth and easy and EIS were able to get them up and running on the system very quickly. They were very pleased with the level of communication and collaboration between EIS and their internal IT Team.

The Benefits

As soon as the system was in place, Respond began to experience numerous benefits.

Saved time and reduced the workload The accounts department saw their workload reduced significantly. Approval processes that had previously required several steps were now completely automated, saving many hours each week. The system enables the team to easily keep track of progress, outstanding tasks etc.
Streamlined their approval processes Before implementing TraX each invoice required lots of emails and scanning back and forth for people to approve it, as well as printing it off and signing it, whereas now everything is done electronically. Once the invoice is in the system all people have to do is look at it, check it, authorise it, click on the link and the system looks after everything else. It is now a paperless operation.
Facilitated handwritten, paper and electronic documents Thanks to TraX they were now able to process invoices that were scanned copies or handwritten documents and incorporate approval rules and functionality around that to make the system work more efficiently.
Made it easy to identify and rectify mistakes TraX streamlined their processes and improved visibility. This meant that they could pull up information quickly, easily spot any anomalies as they arose and resolve them right away.
Accommodated remote working The timing of the implementation couldn’t have been better. When Covid restrictions reached their peak in 2020 the Finance Team were able to work from home easily, thanks to TraX, in a way they wouldn’t have been able to before.Previously, they would have had to deal with paper invoices and printed material, which they had to manually enter, but the ability to scan something was invaluable during this time. If someone was in the office, they could simply scan the post and instantly send it to the system, where it could be processed electronically.Respond are very impressed with both the system and the service provided by EIS and would highly recommend them to other companies. In fact, they already have.

Our Tech Team leader said that it was one of the easiest implementations he had ever experienced, as they really knew what they were doing, and were able to explain it easily to our internal IT team

Deirdre Whittle, Finance Team

Respond

I would describe TraX as a one-stop-shop solution. Everything is contained within the system and there’s complete transparency and visibility

Deirdre Whittle, Finance Team

Respond

We take care of your documents, so you can take care of business

Enterprise Imaging Systems (EIS) are the information management experts. Our electronic document management, scanning and accounts payable automation solutions make fast work of paperwork and make accounting a breeze, freeing you and your team up to focus on business growth.