British Library goes paperless

The British Library is electronically storing and approving over 3,000 purchase invoices each month with Version One's document imaging technology, DbArchive.

Since implementing the new Version One system, which is tightly integrated into its Oracle E-Business Suite system, The British Library has freed-up document storage space and reduced invoice processing time, enabling suppliers' payment terms to be more easily met. The Version One system can be accessed by up to 2000 authorised British Library staff across five different sites either through Oracle or via the Version One web browser, DbWebQuery.

Jayne Cove, Oracle E-Business Suite Business Development Manager from The British Library says, "The Financial Operations & Business Development team identified a need for document management and an opportunity to improve purchase invoice processing efficiency. After a competitive tender process and an extensive evaluation exercise the British Library decided upon Version One's DbArchive due to its tight integration with Oracle and Version One's impressive customer referencability."

With DbArchive, all purchase invoices are imaged using a Kodak i260 scanner and automatically linked to the appropriate record in Oracle. Authorised staff can now retrieve all invoices directly from their PCs instead of having to spend time manually locating documents. Authorisation of purchase invoices is also fully automated, replacing a manual and time-consuming approval process involving posting and physically signing paper invoices.

Jayne Cove says, "Purchase invoice approval is more efficient than ever before. Using Version One's system in conjunction with Oracle's workflow, the relevant approvers are automatically notified by email that there is an invoice for their authorisation. By clicking on a link in the email, they can instantly view the imaged invoices from their PCs enabling them to approve, reject or query the invoices accordingly. The accounts payable team can track where an invoice is in the approval chain and as the process is totally paperless, the risk of lost invoices has been eradicated."

Jayne Cove adds, "As Version One's DbArchive is scalable, we'll be able to roll it out across the Library, using it to electronically store a range of incoming and outgoing finance and non-finance documents. We believe that the roll-out of this software will undoubtedly provide us with a swift return on our investment."