NSW Area Health Services
Business Profile
NSW Area Health Services operates across multiple geographical locations, with each Area Health Service, administering between 10-20 hospitals. Dataline deals directly with eleven out of the seventeen sites - all of these sites are running Oracle Financials.
The organisation was running either two - three primary host applications, encompassing Oracle financials, Sun accounts and Hosbil (an industry specific system).
A solution was needed to automate accounts payable (MICR Cheque printing & EFT payments), accounts receivable, health fund billing and document distribution such as invoices, statements and purchase orders.
NSW Health required WAN/ LAN printing, multi-site distribution and authorisation and immediacy of delivery for their purchase orders to ensure urgent stock arrived on time for waiting patients.
Business Issues
NSW Health were seeking a solution to overcome some major problems. Their accounts payable and account receivable were laborious, manual and time consuming tasks that were ready to be automated.
The existing systems and processes were causing inefficiencies and an escalation in costs because they were highly labour intensive, time consuming and required multiple handling which lead to errors within the system.
Accounts Payable
There was a large reliance on manual cheques and a need for EFT payments to automate the process. With multiple bank accounts required, a large quantity of pre-printed cheques and invoice stock was needed. This was not only expensive but presented storage problems and security issues. The pre-printed stationery (cheques and invoices) didn't meet the layout requirements to print the many different types of invoices/statements.
Accounts Receivable
The manual approach to hand writing receipts for any payment, required the use of several applications and was time consuming and cumbersome for operators. Every payment needed to be processed into multiple systems, which also increased the inadvertent occurrence of human error.
Procurement
Multi-site authorisation was required for purchase orders, taking several days through the mail. The existing system did not meet the need for just-in-time distribution of purchase orders for suppliers.
Dataline's Solution
Dataline provides plain paper MICR cheque printing eliminating the need for pre-printed cheque stationery. Automating signaturies and having dynamic logos and text, NSW Health can now change their cheques (and other forms) without expense.
EFT payments with remittance advices provided by fax allowed the organisation to provide payments to suppliers in a timely and efficient manner.
NSW Health also used LINKS to automate the distribution, printing and production of statement and MICR invoices.
Receipting
The Dataline LINKS solution automates the process of receipting by utilising cheque MICR readers reducing laborious key boarding tasks for operators. Invoices are printed with MICR encoding, remittances swiped on receipt and the system is updated automatically. The amount field is manually generated, as it is rarely constant.
Batches are then locked, sealed and uploaded into the host system - Oracle Financials. Screens are simple and processes are fully automated.
Purchase Orders
Procurement is streamlined via the LINKS system. Orders are placed in host applications. LINKS will then poll orders and create purchase order print files, containing logo, relevant delivery address and signature based on flags and business rules. Purchase order is automatically faxed or emailed and hardcopy is printed on a printer nearest the operator via a Wide Area Network. Multi-site authorisation is automated via WAN printing. Substantial time and resources are being saved by the highly automated LINKS system.
Allianz Australia Ltd
Business Profile
Allianz Australia Insurance Limited is Australia's second largest general insurer. Operating throughout Australia, New Zealand and selected Pacific countries the company employs over 2900 staff, has a combined premium income of $1.8 billion, and has $3.99 billion in funds under management.
Providing insurance cover for industrial, commercial, workers' compensation and personal lines Allianz is the insurer of choice for one in three of Australia's top 100 companies.
Allianz also helps companies with risk management, risk finance, loss control and occupational health and safety strategies. These services have helped thousands of businesses provide safer work environments and reduce claim incidents and insurance premiums.
Allianz Australia Insurance also provides six specialist brands. These are:
- Club Marine
- Combrook
- DirecDial
- Hunter Premium Funding
- FAI
- CIC
Business Issues
Allianz Australia wanted to simplify their reconciliation process using LINKS . Australia's second largest insurance company was operating up to nine host applications including FMIS's, industry specific systems, subsidiary systems and legacy systems. In addition, a joint venture alliance with another of Australia's largest insurers further complicated the process with additional interfaces and data feeds (up to 15).
- Allianz wanted to know their daily cash position using LINKS
- Information required for the reconciliation process was kept in disparate host applications and received from many external systems
- Unable to successfully complete automatic daily or monthly reconciliation
- Timing delays in accessing information necessary in the reconciliation process
- Too many resources allocated to the reconciliation process
- Difficulty tracing and identifying items for reconciliation
- Absence of group wide reconciliation reports
- Disparate systems making cash aggregation almost impossible
Dataline's Solution
- Implement a LINKS Reconciliation system to achieve all objectives
- Daily feeds of data from multiple host and external applications achieved
- Bank statement import automated
- Importing and matching before 9am daily
- Manual matching and follow up of exception performed between 9am and 11am
- With the implementation of LINKS, establishing of specific business rules and some business process re-engineering Allianz were able to achieve an automatic matching of over 90% of transactions