News | October 25, 2008

BancTec Teams With Relion To Provide Accounts Payable Automation Solution For Shelter Corporation

Source: BancTec, Inc.

BancTec, a global provider of advanced, high-volume document and payment processing solutions and services, has teamed up with Relion to implement an accounts payable (AP) automation solution for Shelter Corporation, a Minneapolis-based corporation that finances, develops, owns and manages multi-family and senior rental communities throughout the United States.

With more than 70 properties under management across the U.S., Shelter must process approximately 44,000 invoices generated each year by vendors performing work for individual properties. The company believes in providing its local managers the authority to select the best vendor to perform each function, but it wanted to better manage and control an existing AP process that often led to lost paperwork, processing inefficiencies and delayed payments. In addition, it wanted to ensure that all managers involved in the approval cycle had an adequate view of the work in process, as well as to help local managers spend less time shuffling paper and more time managing their properties.

After a false start with another solution provider, Shelter turned to Relion. The AP automation solution Relion developed utilizes BancTec's AP Master&trade software suite to manage each step in the AP cycle. Invoices are first sent to one of Relion's processing centers, where they are scanned and then—using pre-defined business rules—routed to the appropriate manager for coding and approval. Relion hosts and manages all of the document scanning hardware and AP Master software, eliminating the need for Shelter to make a major capital investment itself. In addition, because the AP Master solution is completely accessible over the web, managers have access to their invoices from any location. Finally, the AP automation solution is fully integrated with the popular MRITM property management software that Shelter uses.

"BancTec's AP Master solution has proved its effectiveness in many other industries," said Terry Bradt, President, Relion Corporation. "By leveraging our highly efficient and reliable scanning infrastructure, along with BancTec's robust and flexible software suite, we are able to deliver an AP automation solution that is well-suited for large property managers. We look forward to working with BancTec on other similar opportunities."

"This partnership will enable Shelter to manage all of their invoices electronically, helping them to improve payment accuracy, increase productivity and shorten invoice processing cycle times," said Jerry Brown, vice president, worldwide alliances, BancTec. "The process standardization and web-based capabilities of AP Master, along with Relion's ability to integrate the solution with best of breed hardware, will benefit not only Shelter, but other customers we hope to jointly serve in the future."

About Relion
Relion is dedicated to helping customers reduce the costs of data entry and document handling through "best of breed" software and hardware solutions. Relion focuses on those complimentary solutions that can be tightly integrated and provide the highest ROI. From the front-end scanning of documents and keying of data to back-end, long-term storage and retrieval on the web, Relion provides solutions which enable customers to maximize the value of their technology investment. Relion's range of products and expertise allows customers to capture and distribute business critical information wherever, whenever, and however they need it. All of our solutions are built on modular and standards-based product architecture that encompasses the full range of enterprise content management capabilities, including web content and document management, enterprise portal development and business process workflow. A privately held company, Relion is headquartered in Rochester, MN and manages successful projects across the United States.

About BancTec
BancTec helps clients around the world simplify the process of managing their information. Founded in 1972, the company provides a wide range of solutions for automating complex, high-volume and dataintensive business processes for clients in the financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, government, services and utilities industries. BancTec's offerings include business solutions, business process outsourcing, and infrastructure services. With headquarters in Dallas, BancTec serves clients in 50 countries. For more information on how BancTec can help you optimize information management, visit www.banctec.com

SOURCE: BancTec, Inc.