Issuing and tracking invoices with advanced technologies

Company

REGINA MARIA, the largest private healthcare network in Romania, gained the leadership position on the Romanian medical market due to the quality of the   services and the outstanding number of medical units targeting over 230 000 subscribers and hundreds of thousands of patients in the retail sector. In figures, in March 2014, REGINA MARIA, The private healthcare network, held: 21 own clinics, 4 hospitals, 2 maternity hospitals, 3 medical campuses, 5 imaging centers, a stem cells bank and over 140 partner clinics throughout the country. The activity is sustained by a national network of clinical laboratories (Bucharest, Braşov, Constanţa, Bacău, Cluj and Craiova) ensuring emergency medical tests required by hospitals, as well as non-emergency medical tests required by other units. The laboratory network ensures a wide range of investigations, both common and advanced diagnostic tests, exceeding thus, 1 500 types of medical tests.

Challenge

In 2013, REGINA MARIA was already issuing an important amount of invoices. The invoices were generated in the integrated software solution Charisma ERP and delivered to the courier on a daily basis. The entire process required a lot of time, as well as financial and human resources. Besides these impediments, a larger space to archive the hard-copies was needed.

In this context, it was necessary to implement an electronic invoicing solution and create an end-to-end electronic business flow eliminating the effort and optimizing the entire process.

Solution

TotalSoft offered an authorised and end-to-end invoicing solution, in partnership with CertSign, integrated with the Charisma ERP system used by REGINA MARIA for the financial-accounting activity. The software solution covered all the services related to electronic invoicing (electronic signature, time stamping and electronic archiving), fully automating the transmission and invoicing process.

The invoicing is rapidly performed in a few simple steps. Invoices are exported from Charisma ERP in PDF format, signed and dated by the CertSign application, then processed, moved in a folder and sent to customers (electronic or paper invoices). At the same time, these are delivered to the electronic archive through a VPN connection. Therefore, the process was simplified to only a few well defined and fully automated steps.

“The electronic invoicing allows us to replace the current mechanism for invoice issuing and tracking with a higher technology system. The electronic invoicing will bring us a series of benefits, including the optimization of the invoice issuing and delivery procedure and cost reduction related to this process” declared the IT Manager at REGINA MARIA, The private healthcare network.

Results

• Physical archiving was replaced with an accessible electronic archive that does not require administration;
• Cost cutting for invoice issuing and transmission “Cost reduction is obviously the main benefit of the electronic invoicing, meaning that the employees’ tasks are reduced and the paper, printing, courier and archiving costs are eliminated. As we will use this system with most of our clients, the impact on costs will be grater”.
• Employees do not focus on transmitting paper invoices but on their job-specific tasks.
• Eliminates the risk of losing the invoices and thus, the risk of not being paid for this reason.
• The issued invoices are more easily tracked “Now, any email sent with the invoice attached, stands for the invoice and supports us in the collection process” states the IT Manager.
• Invoices are sent more easily, rapidly and safely.
• A higher document safety during the entire lifecycle of invoices; the data are protected against unauthorised modification. 

[Case study written in 2014]