-The case study below was written before April 2003 and does not reflect the current name of the company and software. Microsystems Technology is now AnyDoc Software. OCR for Forms is now known as OCR for AnyDoc®

For most of us, bills are a necessary evil. But if you are a company whose business is collecting payments on outstanding debts to other organizations, bills are a blessing. At least in theory.

For Regions Interstate Billing Service, Inc., a Decatur, Alabama-based business providing accounts receivable billing for nearly 400 other U.S. companies, particularly in the Southeast, business was becoming almost too good. In operation since 1984, Regions Interstate Billing, a division of Regions Financial Corporation, buys thousands of open invoices at a discount and then collects the amounts due. Approximately 125 Regions Interstate Billing employees occupy an entire 12,800-square-foot building.

Joy Brown, the senior vice president who oversees daily operations at Regions Interstate Billing, estimates the company currently processes 10,000 new invoices each day. The daily work of tracking and collecting payment on such a large number of unpaid bills can become a real-life financial nightmare, especially if copies of original invoices are illegible or difficult to retrieve. "Customers don’t pay bills while you’re looking for information, so both the quality and accessibility of our archived invoices are very important," Brown explains.

Beginning in late 1996, Regions Interstate Billing installed technology to increase the quality and volume capacity of its operations. Brown credits Microsystems Technology, Inc. with optimizing Regions Interstate Billing’s electronic equipment with the installation of Microsystems’ OCR for Forms™, the market’s leading software for capturing information from forms.

"We would have had to increase our data entry staff significantly to get where we are today in volume," Brown admits. "OCR for Forms eliminated our need for a second set of data entry personnel."

Instead, Regions Interstate has increased bill-processing volume by 30% since the installation of OCR for Forms. Much of the work of the original four data entry clerks has been redirected. As an additional bonus, the company can maintain better-quality stored data and access it more readily—all of which helps Regions Interstate Billing collect payments on 3,000,000-4,000,000 bills annually.

Days Spent Searching Under Old System

In the past, Regions Interstate Billing handled new invoice data by having data entry clerks key critical billing information such as account numbers and dollar amounts due into company computer systems from original invoices. Those original invoices would then be sent to an outside vendor to be microfilmed and stored on microfiche for any necessary follow-up or verification.

When a billing question arose, clerks would often spend days searching the microfiche library for the specific invoice involved. "Once the microfilmed copy was found, it was frequently of poor quality and difficult to read," Brown explains. "We were definitely looking for better, more advanced technology" for storing and retrieving documents," she adds.

Paul Crawford III, Regions Interstate Billing President and Chief Executive Officer, gave ongoing support for technological improvement, and Brown began working with Varsity Computing, a local computer reseller, to increase the speed and quality of Regions Interstate Billing’s data storage and retrieval processes in November 1996. "Varsity had the products to help us archive the invoices," Brown adds. That was the first step.

Step Two, remembers Ravi Kolli, technical manager at Varsity Computing, was obtaining a document imaging system, as well as a way to tie new billing information into existing data stored on the company’s IBM AS400 minicomputer. Kolli recommended OCR for Forms as part of the solution. "It offered results on both the input side and the capability to have data interface with the AS400 minicomputer," Kolli explains.

In the past, Regions Interstate Billing had rejected two other systems that would have required the double-keying of information. With OCR for Forms, there would be no need for double-keying. OCR for Forms would automate the manual data entry and then facilitate the transfer of data via ASCII text to the company’s minicomputer. After several meetings with a systems integrator that had recently begun selling OCR for Forms, Regions Interstate Billing made the purchase. A systems integrator helped Regions Interstate initially with the implementation of OCR for Forms.

Admittedly, the change brought improvements. After the installation, new data became accessible and retrievable within 24 hours. "Before, we were always backed up by three or four days in retrieving the documents we needed," Brown notes. Even so, she admits there wasn’t the headway she’d expected with the new system. "The time it was taking to capture information was too slow. We couldn’t meet our deadlines, and we had to revert to some manual keying," she recalls. As a result, Regions Interstate had two different systems running—one manual, one automatic.

Over the next few months, Regions Interstate Billing shoveled more time and money into fine-tuning its equipment and system. "But when all this was finished, we still didn’t have the quality [of retrieved documents] that we needed," she adds.

Problems "Unlike Any the Company Had Seen"

"We knew we still needed work done on our system, and the management of Microsystems personally stepped in to help us. Our problems were unlike any the company had seen," Brown says, adding that Microsystems’ attitude was: "If we can make it work for you, and it’s one of the most difficult installations we’ve worked with, then it can’t do anything but help us in the future."

Microsystems’ personnel spent several days studying the hardware and software installed at Regions Interstate Billing before determining the scanners being used weren’t adequate to the task of handling about 700 different types of invoice forms with 1,000 form definitions. "Many of these invoice forms are low-quality, second- or third-carbon copies," says Kolli. "The scanners just couldn’t handle them."

Kolli, who continued to assist Brown with the company’s basic computing issues, also speaks highly of Microsystems’ ability to go "above and beyond" normal customer support in working to improve Regions Interstate Billing’s situation.

By far the biggest improvement came after Microsystems hooked Regions Interstate Billing up with the then-new Kodak Digital Science 3500 scanner. Kodak’s scanner, which was designed to produce quality results from even poor-quality originals, and to handle volumes of up to 15,000 documents daily, had no trouble with Regions Interstate Billing’s volumes or form quality.

The Kodak scanner/OCR for Forms combination proved successful. "We often run a complete batch of anywhere from five up to 800 or 1,000 forms now – without any questionable characters," she notes. "We would not have the quality we have now without this help from Microsystems. I don’t know of any other company that would have gone to the extent that Microsystems did to get us where we are today," she adds.

Regions Interstate Billing now has five verification stations, two extraction stations and four retrieval stations in its system. "The general setup at Regions Interstate Billing is very neat, and its capabilities astonish me," adds Kolli. "Just think about processing that many pieces of paper in eight hours and then having them available for the rest of the company to use the next day!"

Brown is also pleased with the performance of both Microsystems and OCR for Forms. "We have gained the ability to add business without growing the number of our people, and we have gained effectiveness in the quality of the information we have to retrieve," she concludes.

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