Logical Structuring of Information Dramatically Improves Customer Servicemand Efficiency

Does your call center still require your customers or members to wait for 24 hours to gain access to the transaction? Does a teller need to consult records in two, three or more places to process the transaction or to answer a question about it later? When the auditors arrive, how easily can you give them access to the records they need?

A robust document management system puts everything related to an account or an account-holder in one place. Once you have reduced extra paper, captured incoming paper documents electronically, and expanded your electronic document system to handle all types of documents, you are poised to organize this information in a logical structure that facilitates research and retrieval of records.

The way you use records “by account-holder” is the most logical way to store and manage information. With everything related to that customer or member in virtual folders, any document can be located right where it’s supposed to be instead of somewhere in a growing database with longer and longer search times. Record and transaction integrity is complete.

(This is the fourth strategy in a six-part series.  Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)

Partnership with Garda Cash Logistics provides accelerated funds availability

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 05, 2009 – Bluepoint Solutions, innovator in Check 21 capture, remote deposit capture (RDC) and image-based item processing, announced during the Annual AFP Conference in San Francisco the availability of image-based cash vault processing, including image capture and image exchange of deposits and payments. Bluepoint’s long-standing partnership with Garda Cash Logistics, America’s premium provider and a subsidiary of Garda World Security Corporation, (TSX:GW) (Garda), one of the most trusted cash logistics, physical security and global risk consulting firms in the world, continues to provide advanced cash logistics services to financial executives nationwide.

The enactment of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, “Check 21″ provided a significant opportunity to leverage remote image capture and image exchange technology to accelerate the deposit capture process from receipt through posting all from one of the earliest points of presentment, the vault. Following an extensive evaluation period, Garda partnered with California-based Bluepoint Solutions to implement a full suite of electronic, image-based vault solutions.

“With the advent of Check 21, we realized we could offer our clients a cost-effective solution to help expand their footprints and reduce costs,” said Patricia Marr, Vice President of Product Management at Garda. “By expanding our existing vault services to include image-based cash logistic services, our clients can effectively capture and exchange images received through Garda’s vault network, significantly accelerating deposit capture, posting and presentment. Working with Bluepoint, vaults can now be accessed electronically.”

Working with Bluepoint, Garda’s virtual vaults have the capability to immediately scan, process and balance mixed deposits of both cash and check documents. In addition to check processing, Bluepoint supports the image capture of paper tickets used to issue credit for cash deposits or cash adjustments, giving Garda the ability to provide direct billing data to banks. Garda’s centralized deposit balancing process captures, truncates, balances and adjusts check deposits for each of its customers. Check images are then formatted as X9.37 files for posting or bank-to-bank image exchange. Managed in an ASP environment, Bluepoint manages and corrects any exceptions to immediately adjust and balance the received deposit. Within the vault checks are scanned and the images are sent to Bluepoint’s centralized server where items are repaired if needed and then immediately balanced. The consolidation of the check processing in an ASP environment enables highly trained personnel to manage this functionality, enabling the vaults to stay in balance.

“In today’s uncertain financial environment, a bank cannot afford to lose sight of its core competencies, growing its deposit base and improving customer service,” said Hal Tilbury, president and CEO of Bluepoint Solutions.  “Garda’s image-based virtual vault solution enables financial institutions to increase funds availability, expand geographically and more accurately manage deposits, all without adding additional resources. Specifically, this service helps banks attract and better serve commercial customers.”

About Bluepoint Solutions

Vista, Calif.-based Bluepoint Solutions is a leading innovator in remote deposit capture (RDC), image-based item processing, electronic document management and receipt management. Adhering to strict best practice standards, Bluepoint delivers proven technology solutions and consulting services designed to achieve the strategic goals of increased employee productivity, reduced operating costs and improved customer service. Bluepoint’s family of products and services offer a complete, end-to-end, image-based item capture and payment processing solution. For more information, visit www.bluepointsolutions.com.

Instant Document Capture Starts the Savings at the Point of Presentment

Imaging the documents you receive, transforming paper to electronic files, is where the savings start. It’s where many banks and credit unions have chosen as a starting point in streamlining their document management systems, and for good reason. Industry statistics show the majority of any paper document’s usefulness occurs during the first 24-48 hours after you receive it. Reduce costs during that interval and you affect your overall costs of doing business.

Moving away from centralized scanning operations to instant image capture makes documents and check images immediately available to any authorized employee, enterprise-wide. You no longer need duplicate copies at branch locations, because there is no lapse between receiving the original and having access to it both locally and centrally. And decentralized remote deposit capture is not limited to branches, but can be extended to ATMs, merchant locations or directly to consumers over secure Internet connections, which results in dramatically reduced float and branch traffic.

To the benefits of lower cost and faster access, add the elimination of physical document loss, a non- trivial ongoing headache that results in both poor customer service and wasted time for employees.

(This is the third strategy in a six-part series. Click here to see all past strategies. Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)

Comprehensive EDM Reduces More Than Paper

The more you are able to consolidate document storage and retrieval, the more efficiency gains you will make. Consolidating document storage means putting multiple file types from multiple sources into one database.

It also means keeping everything related to a transaction together. Consider the common practices of separating paper documents related to a simple transaction, perhaps a deposit with cash withdrawal at a teller window. Checks go here, deposit and cash tickets go there, receipts are generated, copied and put somewhere else, IDs, signature cards and even fingerprints are consulted, checks are batched for imaging and courier transport at the end of the day. The integrity of the transaction records is lost immediately. Now consider the downstream processes associated with clearing, retrieving and auditing transactions, and multiply by thousands.

Opportunities in this scenario for reducing costs, reducing errors, and reducing paper are easy to spot. A comprehensive EDM system will place all types of information in one place, including images of paper you receive, documents you generate, audio clips from your call center, and so on.
Staff time and overtime will probably be the biggest type of savings from this strategy. But even costs of clearing items can be reduced, perhaps significantly reduced, by transmitting image files for clearing multiple times per day.

(This is the second strategy in a six-part series.  The first strategy is Create Less Paper.  Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)

It’s Right for Operations, and Right for the Environment

“Paperless” offices have been a dream of automation experts for fifty years now. Today there is a new urgency about using paper wisely, not only to lower operating costs but to protect our precious natural resources.
Current practices for handling a newly-created document typically include printing it, perhaps with multiple copies, and then scanning it for electronic storage. Why not eliminate the printing step altogether and store it immediately? Loan documents, teller receipts, new account forms, COLD documents are just a few examples of documents that can be imported electronically without ever printing them on paper.

The more forms and other types of paper documents your electronic document management (EDM) system handles, the more you can reduce your budgets for supplies, labor, equipment, and storage space. Recent studies are starting to show the real cost of paper-based systems. It is eye-opening to consider not just the cost of the paper itself, but the cost of buying it, storing supplies of it, generating and copying it, employee time handling it through multiple processes, moving it, filing and keeping it, losing and finding it.

When institutions implement or upgrade even part of their processes, case study after case study shows the savings are many times the cost of the technology they deploy.

How does paper reduction affect customer service? Think of the delays that are reduced or eliminated by streamlining the processing of all that paperwork, from shorter teller lines to faster responses to customer service queries. And when a paper document is needed, a good EDM can produce that paper when and where the consumer wants it.

(This is the first strategy in a six-part series.  Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)

Safeguarding account holder records is a requirement for all financial institutions. Threats to data are as diverse as terrorist attacks, natural disasters and digital theft. After a major loss of computer records, 43% of institutions never reopen and over half close within two years of the loss*. For small to medium sized banks and credit unions, Business Continuity Planning, commonly known as BCP, can be a costly endeavor.

Several technical and operational factors must be considered when researching and selecting a data back-up and recovery solution. When these issues are examined in detail, virtualization emerges as the clear choice.

Select the lowest-cost, highest-performance backup medium.

Traditionally, magnetic tape dominated the BCP industry, but as the cost of disk space continues to fall, disk-based solutions have become increasingly popular. They offer superior encryption without requiring the delicate storage and frequent replacements of tape solutions. Most recently, virtualization as a back-up medium has become much more accessible. It offers more storage capacity, on and offsite, with fewer maintenance costs at a lower price point.  It is especially favored by small to medium size institutions with minimal technical staff to handle business continuity tasks.

Encrypt and safeguard backed-up data.

Securing sensitive data is more important today than ever. The Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the “Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA),” requires every financial institution to have a security plan to protect the confidentiality and integrity of consumers’ personal information. This means that the methodology you choose for backing up data is crucial to the success of your BCP. Magnetic tape is typically not encrypted, but disk and virtual back-ups offer the benefits of encryption, ensuring tighter security.
Ensure that backed-up data can be restored to various types of hardware. Hardware systems change frequently over time. Critical data must be stored such that it can be easily restored to a variety of hardware systems, now and in the future. Both tape and disk storage are limited to restoration on the same type of hardware and operating system. Only by capturing all information in a virtual environment, below the operating system level, can you restore your entire server, its applications and data into operation-ready mode in a matter of minutes.

Ensure that data backup continues during active recovery.

A recovery and backup solution that allows your institution to handle data recovery in the background, while continuing normal business operations, is ideal. Account holders should not be inconvenienced when doing business with your institution during a recovery phase. A virtual backup can be operational within minutes of a main-server failure, ensuring minimal downtime.

Maintain technical resource requirements for a 24/7 data backup solution.

Understanding, designing, implementing and maintaining a backup system is a highly skilled practice. Additional staff with the skills and experience to execute a backup and recovery plan might be necessary, especially for small to midsized institutions. Outsourcing can be an attractive alternative, considering the impact on your ROI after calculating the costs of additional staff, equipment, maintenance and storage.

Virtual backup offers myriad benefits over other methods of data archiving. It is highly cost effective and has a lower instance of data loss than magnetic tape. It also provides a more secure archiving method than tape back-up. When taking into account the overall cost of a data backup solution, it is equally important to consider security and longevity. The ability to back up and restore data in nearly real-time provides your institution with a technological edge that your customers will appreciate.  Real-time recovery means that your clients won’t notice a disruption in service and your institution can carry on normal business operations without interruption.

Bluepoint offers the only Virtual Backup and Disaster Recovery solution to financial institutions that provides simple backup and restore, full virtualization and off-site backup storage in a hands off model, all at an affordable price. Click here to visit the product page.

*Cummings, Maeve; Haag, Stephen; and McCubbrey, Donald. 2003. Management information systems for the information age. http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0072935863/information_center_view0/

Save resources and boost efficiency with Bluepoint’s Receipt Manager™ v4.0

Did you know that your institution can generate an email transaction receipt instead of — or in addition to — a paper receipt? With Receipt Manager v4.0, Bluepoint’s electronic receipt management solution, your institution can save paper and printing supplies, further “green initiatives,” enhance service to account holders and increase efficiency at the teller line.

• Go green: offer account holders the next logical step beyond electronic statements. Conserve resources with email receipts.
• Increase security: protect account holders’ private financial information by eliminating insecure, vulnerable paper documentation.
• Strengthen relationships: customize receipt notification emails to reinforce a current marketing campaign, provide information about upcoming policy changes or thank clients for their business.
• Improve staff efficiency: streamline the transaction process and increase efficiency by replacing physical printing with a one-click email at the teller window. Free your staff from time spent on printer maintenance for other more important responsibilities.
• Reduce hard costs: Improve your bottom line with the reduction of paper and printer supplies used at the teller line.

Receipt Manager’s email feature is flexible and configurable to best fit your needs. It provides the ability to be turned off at the organization level. Plus, tellers can generate a paper and/or email receipt based on account holder preferences. Receipt Manager v4.0 includes options to generate text or HTML emails with variable fonts and embedded links and images, specify “reply-to” email addresses, and make unlimited updates to email messages, providing clients with the latest news and current promotions.

Receipt Manager produces an electronic receipt image of every transaction, stores it immediately and makes it available to any authorized employee from any location. Tellers can capture client signatures and identification information, print receipts, research past transactions and now instantly send a receipt notification by email!

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Imagine waiting all day or even a week for your credit union to fulfill a member request such as retrieving transaction receipts for confirmation. This used to be the situation at Stanford Federal Credit Union ($821 million; 47,618 members; Palo Alto, CA), where members had to wait nearly a day – sometimes more – for a request such as this one. In some cases if a member needed all receipts for an entire month, it would take a week to search for and provide the compiled information to the member. This extended wait was unacceptable for Stanford.

In addition, Stanford was looking to decrease the amount of paper receipts being produced, filed, and stored on a daily basis and eliminate the need to manually retrieve receipts and other documents via member requests. Wanting to enhance its member service and eliminate its growing hard-copy document storage, Stanford commenced with its search for a document management solution that could alleviate these issues.

Other document management issues that needed to be handled included:

• Decrease the receipt paper being kept
• Stop the need to pull these receipts when a member had an issue with a transaction
• Ability to enter an identification number for DL, for example, and then later search for the receipt
• Ability to search for a receipt and see the signature
• Decrease the size of a receipt for a member
• Decrease the space needed on the teller line

During its vendor search, Stanford discovered the document management company Bluepoint Solutions and its Receipt Manager solution. Bluepoint’s Receipt Manager was developed to work efficiently at each teller station, producing an electronic paper record of every transaction. Because electronic receipts are stored instantaneously, they are immediately available to anyone throughout the credit union – with special permissions for accessibility made in advance. Receipt Manager captures the print stream from the credit union’s core processor and creates a digital image for the member to sign and is then stored electronically.

“Members used to wait for a day for a request to be fulfilled – or a week for those bigger requests, which was unacceptable for us and our members,” says Sally Williams, Director of Project Management for Stanford Federal Credit Union. “Today with Receipt Manager, they can have that same request – big or small – fulfilled immediately within seconds. Because of this solution, our member service has been incredibly quick and accurate – and satisfying.”

In addition, Williams says that staff at Stanford’s five branches used to deal with member requests by having to constantly call the main branch – where all member documents were archived in file cabinets. Staff from one of the branches would then put in a request to search and retrieve the particular document. This painstaking process used to take a day or more to complete. Now with Receipt Manager, any teller at any branch can fulfill a member request from their workstation immediately. They can even put in the ID verification, which Receipt Manager conducts automatically.

“This process is like night and day for our credit union now,” Williams says. “Our members can receive immediate service from their requests – and they can even get a printed receipt at their request if they want a hard-copy. We save so much time and paper now.”

For example, if a Stanford member requires a hard-copy receipt, the Receipt Manager solution only requires a piece of paper a fraction of the size of the previous 8×6 (inches) size, now at maybe 2×4 (inches). In addition, the smaller receipt printer saves space at each teller station, replacing the bulky laser printers of the past.

“We save at least a day for each member request,” adds Williams. “Searching is so much quicker now because we can look for data by teller number and dollar amount and get to the bottom of any member request or issue immediately. This immediacy adds so much value to our members’ experience at our credit union. They’re getting their answers now and resolving any issues on the spot.”

Even something as minor as programming to print a receipt that lines up with the transparent window in certain envelopes is a big deal to Stanford’s Williams. Receipt Manager’s flexibility enables a credit union to accommodate such a detailed task. “As simple and minor as this task is, we need it,” Williams says. “Receipt Manager allows us to fulfill this need for our members for mailing purposes. Sometimes it’s all in the details.”

“If a member comes into a branch or calls, we’re able to find member data quickly,” she says. “It’s a nice solution for searching for member transactions. It’s so fast and convenient, which is a huge benefit to us and to our members being able to search for all transactions for one member this quickly. Not only have our operational and document storage costs gone way down, but our member services have been upgraded exponentially because of the quickness.”

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SELCO Community Credit Union ($765 million; 96,274 members; Eugene, OR) faced two challenges: enhancing security for its document management processes and being environmentally conscious, or “green,” with the amount of paper the credit union was generating from processing members’ financial documentation. SELCO commenced seeking out a vendor that could assist the credit union with both concerns and more.

“We’re in the part of the country where we’re really conscious of the environment and our membership shares that commitment,” states Babs Manion, director of compliance and human resources for SELCO Community Credit Union. “They encouraged us to be more responsible and diligent in this area, which reinforced our interest in a digital document management system.”

In 2005, SELCO discovered that Bluepoint Solutions’ FASTdocs electronic document management system answered both the security and green issues. With FASTdocs, SELCO could integrate its new, digital document management processes with its Symitar Episys^TM core processing system.

“The fact that the member folders for new membership accounts and certain products or services that we anticipate documentation is created automatically is a real plus,” adds Manion. “We also use the web version, which is integrated directly to Symitar for items [identification, account cards] we frequently review and we need to be able to have the document available very quickly.”

FASTdocs also enabled SELCO to scan and store member documents in a logical directory hierarchy, allowing all member documents to be funneled into a single, electronic filing system based on member data. The system is built around the member. Subsequently, locating and retrieving members’ information is as easy as typing the member name or number and simply clicking the mouse.

“When we were searching for a solution, the suite of products offered by Bluepoint allowed us to look at a bundle of document management products collectively – combining all the imaging, archiving, retrieving management processes into one interactive solution,” Manion explains. “We found that this was a group of processes or tools that belonged together, which makes sense and was very important for us because we had so many passwords to remember. It made sense for us to consolidate, making our document processing much more efficient for better member service.”

FASTdocs other tools include:

• Online signature verification
• Electronic creation and signing of loan documents
• Tracking of pending loans
• ID Verification
• Signature verification
• High speed data import

As a result of the workflow’s re-engineering by using FASTdocs, SELCO has eliminated most of its hardcopy member documentation (processing and storage) – re-engineering just one process which used to generate 20,000 pieces of paper per month resulted in an annual savings of $25,000 considering the saved paper amount and reduced employee time. “That’s quite staggering if you think about it,” Manion says. “Almost every transaction we performed produced a piece of paper. That was too much for us, our members, and the environment.”

Today, everything from accounting, wire transfers, and card services to collections, draft processing, and other back office operations are performed electronically, reducing paper generation and storage to a bare minimum. Even audits performed at the credit union are conducted electronically, contributing to the saving of reams of paper.

“Many of our members have high expectations toward protecting the environment”, Manion says. “We were constantly receiving feedback from them on how to be environmentally conscious. Now we have a system that is – which also allows us to save money, reduce staff labor and physical storage space, and ultimately provide better member service.”

Storing its member documents electronically not only saves reams of paper, but the end result is providing better, faster member service. Instead of searching endlessly through files and files of documents by hand, SELCO’s Financial Service Associates (FSAs) simply type in the member’s information from the request and retrieve the documents electronically within seconds. This process saves a tremendous amount of time and keeps the members happy.

“We used to have a whole team of people looking up member requests stored in files,” Manion says. “Today, almost everything is digital. Our FSAs literally have just about any member file at their fingertips and can look up that information immediately. That’s big for us and especially for our members.

Manion predicts that within one year, all relevant member documents will be converted and archived electronically for additional efficiencies in service, saved paper and storage space, and enhanced security.

In addition to saving time, paper, and the environment, SELCO and its members recognize the importance of security – hardcopy documents falling into the wrong hands, which could result in identity theft. Implementing Bluepoint’s FASTdocs solution eliminated this concern, as the member data archived electronically for fast retrieval was also better protected.

“It was a challenge for us to safeguard information in paper form,” Manion explains. “With the security this system provides, everything is safely stored away electronically. All information is entered through FASTdocs in real time and safely archived – not getting physically sent somewhere else where it may get lost.”

“If anybody comes in to cash a check, for instance, we want to know that it’s you,” she adds. “This system helps with this security issue because we can pull up the electronically stored member information and immediately see that it is you – or not.”

One innovative way SELCO has used FASTdocs is for new employee applications. As the hundreds of applications arrive at the credit union’s 13 branches spanning six counties, they are all indexed and pooled for future reference. Today, instead of faxing and mailing the documents back and forth, the relevant applications for particular positions opening up can be electronically searched and retrieved in seconds – which maintains data on qualified candidates being considered for those positions. In addition, as the interviews progress, the system can track the status of each applicant – saving an enormous amount of time and possible confusion.

“It’s critical that this solution not be viewed as an IT solution but as a member solution instead,” Manion says. “We want our users to thoroughly understand it and enjoy using it so they can sell it to the members, which will give them confidence in us as their financial institution.”

“This solution from Bluepoint has allowed us to think differently,” she continues. “With many of the products out there that are ‘canned,’ you have to work around them. With FASTdocs, however, it’s flexible so it works around us, seamlessly aligning with our processes.”

SELCO is currently implementing Bluepoint’s receipt manager product to complement its FASTdocs services. “Everybody who has worked and dealt with FASTdocs, has enjoyed using it,” Manion says. “Now that they know we’re implementing Receipt Manager, we can’t do it fast enough for them.”

With the threat of ID theft vastly reduced and the wasteful amount of paper generated nearly eliminated, SELCO Community Credit Union can continue fine-tuning its focus on serving its membership. By implementing Bluepoint’s technology and addressing these issues, SELCO’s members have the confidence that their credit union is there to meet their needs – whether they’re dealing with security issues or environmental concerns. This confidence translates to loyalty, which makes the credit union that much more valuable to the member.

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From two days to two minutes was the “before and after” experience Summit Credit Union ($90 million; 19,514 members; 5 branches with a 6th branch opening in May 2007 and 2 branch outlets; utilizing the Summit core processor) had implementing its document imaging, archival, and retrieval system. When dealing with member requests and transaction items, the Greensboro, North Carolina-based credit union used to take a painstaking two days to fulfill a single request. Sifting through thousands upon thousands of paper files consistently took Summit’s research department up to 48 hours to provide a member with an answer. This service was slow and arduous and the credit union knew it had to improve to attract and retain members. It was time for a change.

And change it did. At that time – which was nearly two years ago – Summit implemented a document imaging, archival, and retrieval solution from Bluepoint Solutions to complement its new lending product. Since the implementation of its document management system, the credit union has drastically sped up the request/fulfillment process. To be more precise, Summit has saved 47 hours and 58 minutes in research time. Summit’s staff quickly discovered that its new imaging technology could fulfill a member’s request on the spot in less than two minutes. That is very different from the two days it used to take.

According to Summit’s CEO, Sam Whitehurst, the credit union used to actually print all documents for members to sign and file them away in a huge room full of filing cabinets. When a member returned to request a particular transaction item, the teller would alert the credit union’s research department to start its search quest. The member would leave the credit union while the research department rummaged through paper files upon paper files of member documents to find the data in question. Once found, the member was notified and a copy of the document was mailed to their residence. This tedious process often took up to two days. Whitehurst states, “This system has so many practical applications that benefit our credit union in so many ways. And it’s amazing how fast we can get things done – from two days to two minutes in most cases.”

Introducing FASTdocs
Since using its electronic document management system for nearly two years, all documents are now scanned and digitally stored into Bluepoint’s FASTdocs product at the credit union for quick and easy search and retrieval. Today, if there is a similar member request, the teller can simply enter the search criteria on their workstation and in seconds the member’s request is fulfilled – without printing out a single sheet of paper.

Time & paper saver: Achieving ROI
“This process is a huge time-saver and paper-saver,” Whitehurst says. “We’ve been on this system for nearly two years and we’ve already achieved our ROI. Our members are not only pleased with the fast service, we’re very pleased with the bottom line.”

Department elimination
In addition to saving time and paper, the credit union has all but eliminated its research department, which consisted of five full-time employees. Today, the department consists of one part-time person who handles any research tasks one day a week. The other department staffers either retired or were reallocated to other departments. “Over all, Summit will save $50,000 a year with the elimination of this department,” states Whitehurst.

Security
Another benefit of the digital document system is security. Instead of having hardcopy paper running amok, all member data is digitally stored on a secure server. “We like the security aspect of this technology,” adds Whitehurst. “It addresses the ID theft threat of all sensitive information. All member information is electronically secured and stored on our servers – no longer out in the open.”

Loan Process
In the loan process, for example, Bluepoint’s FASTdocs system allows employees to scan all loan documents for secure, electronic storage, while the member receives the signed originals for their records. In addition, the system integrates seamlessly with the credit union’s CRI Systems lending platform – which makes for a smooth and efficient lending process that is easily maintained if the member ever has any questions. “The members really like having their signed document to keep,” Whitehurst says. “For us, we scan all the documentation on the spot and archive the data for safe keeping. It works very well for both parties.”

Marketing
Another useful feature on this system is its memo function, which allows tellers to attach a little electronic note to transaction receipts to pass on to another employee to alert them about any particular issues that relate to the member. Summit has turned this ordinary feature into an extraordinary, in-house marketing tool – renaming it “Teller Notes.” For instance, if a teller is helping a member at the window and discovers that this person may be in the market to buy a house, the teller can send an electronic note or memo to the lending department alerting them to contact this particular member about the credit union’s mortgage programs.

“It’s all built into the workflow,” Whitehurst explains. “This feature has turned into a remarkable marketing tool for tellers to refer products and services. We’re trying to develop a sales culture at our credit union, and this feature has helped tremendously in reaching this goal.”

Because of Summit’s Teller Notes, cross selling can be achieved right at the teller line. Whitehurst adds that the feature can track tellers who are providing the referral information. Depending on their performance, this tool can thwart a highly productive teller into a sales position.

“This system also allows the tellers to get to know the members,” he explains. “Member requests can be handled quickly right at the teller window, which empowers the staff and enhances the member encounter. Ultimately, it reinforces the value of our credit union.”

Centralized data for all
Even representatives in the credit union’s call center can instantly pull up digitally scanned images of a receipt, deposit ticket, or check from a member request at their workstation and immediately address any issue the member has. Because everything is captured electronically (scanned and stored) at the point of presentment, all the member data is centralized for immediate retrieval. The information is immediately accessible to just about any staff member.

A technology perspective
From a technology standpoint, Bluepoint’s system is easy to maintain. Summit signed up for Bluepoint’s Application Services Contract (ASC) program. The ASC program allows Bluepoint to manage the Summit CU account remotely from Bluepoint’s headquarters outside San Diego, CA – updating the credit union’s PCs with new system features or resolving any software issues.

“Managing a ‘fat client’ solution is not as taxing with remote access,” admits Noko Doan, Network Operator for Summit. “It’s merely transferring knowledge from Bluepoint to our credit union. It’s that easy.”

Speaking of easy, Noko adds that using Bluepoint’s FASTdocs product for end-of-day reporting merely requires dragging a file from the desktop and dropping it into FASTdocs – then it is done. Since all the documents are digitally stored, there is no paper to deal with. “Now we truly have a paperless credit union,” she says.

Wire Transfers
When dealing with wire transfers, Summit leverages the indexing power of Bluepoint’s FASTdocs product. If a member requests a wire transfer, all the teller has to do is pull up the transfer form, have it signed, and scan it. The transfer is then indexed for quick retrieval. This process, which takes a nanosecond, replaces taking the wire transfer document and faxing it to the accounting department, the accounting department receiving it and piling it in their “to do” tray for processing.

Auditing
Even the credit union’s internal auditor’s job has been made more efficient. Since all member data is digitally captured and stored, the auditor can search for any specific data via Bluepoint’s import function. The auditors can then sort out the riskiest data in seconds and have immediate access to those documents for reviewing.

Disaster Recovery
Summit’s disaster recovery has also been covered with Bluepoint’s system. If the credit union’s core system goes down for any reason, staff will still be able to see balances from that previous night via Bluepoint’s FASTdocs.

In his own words
“The Bluepoint products are easy to learn for your front staff, easy to support and customize for your IT staff and flexible for your Management team. FASTdocs is so robust when you are ready to move to the next level of going paperless the product is more than capable of getting you there!

Tellers can be unreceptive to technology getting in the way of member service, but have adapted well to Receipt Capture and understand the cost savings and service value it brings. We received no negative feedback from our tellers and that speaks volumes to the quality of the product. We are going live with Check21 Capture in April and that workflow is all but built into the Receipt Capture solution. A tremendous advantage when rolling out this value added feature of Receipt Capture.

FASTdocs gives us member centric access to receipts, new account forms, member service forms, loan forms, and statement copies. We can store member e-mails, letters, faxes, and voice recording. FASTdocs is beyond flexible, easy to learn and works every time, on time.

We are truly going paperless now and that has allowed us to realize tremendous gains in efficiency and improved member service. Two things we must have in today’s competitive environment!”

Credit Unions are welcome to contact Sam Whitehurst, Summit Credit Union at 336.662.6250 or via email at swhitehurst@summitcu.org.