The reason Clean Scapes in Austin, Texas, wanted to move away from paper-based purchase order processing was twofold.

“For one, we knew paper printing was very costly,” says Travis Dyer, director of technology. “But also, if our managers are back in the office for the sole reason of doing paperwork, they aren’t doing real work. They need to be in the field to be productive.”

So, the company employed Laserfiche, a web-based submission form software in 2013. Office personnel and managers now use the service for all the company’s purchase orders, invoices and property visit forms with photos and notes. And there are a number of features Clean Scapes still hasn’t tapped.

“It could be done with a simple email, but it looks much more professional and has an audit trail,” Dyer says. “It also has customer surveys, which gave us some real good insights on how our customers viewed our service.”

The service costs $3,000 per month for 60 user licenses and users need a computer or phone. The company experienced the typical hitches in implementing a new system, but three years later, it estimates it’s saved around $100,000 by cutting paper cost and saving up to 200 man-hours per week.

Photo: iStock/pannawat