An implementation process that took only a few days has cut one of the biggest chores Mitch Spradlin has in half.
Spradlin, the client accounting supervisor at Richmond, VA.-based Hunton and Williams, started using Whitehill Enterprise, a document transformation engine, about three years ago. He hoped it would save him time on his department’s billing duties, reduce overhead costs, and improve document quality.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“Our firm has grown tremendously just in the time I have been here and billing has been a time-intensive and consuming process and from office to office, even attorney to attorney, the bills would look different,” he said. “We wanted to be able to streamline the process and make our billing and payment cycle shorter and present a more professional look.”
Moncton, N.B.-based Whitehill Technologies Inc. has just announced an upgrade to Enterprise. Version 5.0 allows users options and storage capabilities previously unavailable, thus making the capture and transformation of information more pervasive throughout an entire organization, regardless of complex in-house data systems, according to Stephen Brooks, director of marketing for Whitehill Technologies Inc.
“It’s mostly used for billing purposes right now because it is a high-volume application and businesses like their bills to look professional,” Brooks said. “The things we included were almost entirely based on requests from our existing users. There’s always a choice to make between selecting some dazzling new technology and meeting the requirements of your user-base. We have enough customers now that we certainly have the well to draw on for new products.”
Among the things Brooks said customers asked for were more speed and options that allow for more bill format flexibility, including different currency symbols. Other upgrades and new developments in the product’s feature set include; fax support, which has been automated so that all finished documents a user has specified will be distributed without manual involvement; format editor, so users have the ability to create date and currency formats; distribution database, which is enhanced so users can save distribution information in multiple formats; and document management system (DMS) integration, so users are able to save documents produced with Whitehill Enterprise directly to systems like iManage WorkSite.
By automatically distributing information, the life of a network manager becomes simplified, according to Brooks.
“Where in the past a network manager would have to set up some system of folders somewhere on a server – or maybe an intranet or some kind of access methodology for the end users of these reports – we eliminate that requirement and give them the ability to have the reports or documents automatically put to wherever they have to be,” he explained. “[That could be] a folder on an individual’s hard drive, or even to post it to the company’s intranet, all that happens without any human intervention at all.”
The new version is available now and pricing is based on the number of timekeepers running billing information or the number of servers used. Per server cost is $25,000 and implementation takes between three and 10 days.
Spradlin said he had an easy time getting used to the product and only has one complaint. “I wish I have more time to spend on it, but they expect me to do all this accounting stuff,” he laughed.
For more details on the offering, Whitehill is on the Web at http://www.whitehill.com.