COOPERATIVES
INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT
In Spain, 2013 saw the creation of 32% more associated work cooperatives than in the previous year.
The first cooperatives appeared during the Industrial Revolution in the 20th century to provide their members with better quality and price conditions, avoiding intermediaries.
A cooperative is an association of people or companies that have voluntarily united to form an organisation whose adminis-tration and management is carried out in a way agreed to by all members. Its objective is to deal with economic, social and cultural needs common to all the members. The corporate pur-pose or activity defines very diverse types of cooperatives: pro-duction, social, savings and credit, consumer, agricultural, hou-sing, transport, tourism, artisans, trade, pharmaceutical, etc.
The current situation
Problems
Cooperative members look for companies that will provide ser-vices to all the members, obtaining in this way better prices and
The main problems that cooperative members have with docu-ments are usually related to:
CIM
Cooperatives
SGAIM strives to provide solutions for companies that make up cooperatives, and to achieve this it offers the following:
AGILITY AND AUTOMATION IN THE REGISTRATION, ACCOUNTING AND PAYMENT OF INVOICES:
During their daily operation, cooperative members receive invoices from their providers that must be registered and entered into their accounting systems in order to pay them in a timely manner. Currently, this is done manually, potentially causing delays in payment, loss of invoices or errors during data entry.
SGAIM’s easy-implemented solution requires only a scanner that is used to digitise the invoices upon arrival. An application installed on the clerks’ computers sends the invoice’s image to SGAIM’s cloud. Totally unassisted, data is then extracted from the image and made available to the members who can then visualise the said image and verify the captured fields. Once any changes have been approved, a file containing the captured data and the invoice’s image is made available.
If the certified digitisation option is chosen then the image will have full legal validity, meaning the original can be destroyed.
This solution speeds up the accounting process, avoids the loss of documents given they are stored in digital format and reduces errors due to the automation of data extraction.
ELECTRONIC INVOICING WITH CERTIFIED SENDING:
The ability to issue invoices with legal value is within reach of any company, a digital certificate and an application able to include it in the invoices are all that are required. SGAIM offers cooperative members this simple solution, without the need for large investments or complicated installations. The savings brought about by electronic invoicing can be seen in lower time investment, greater control over invoicing, and monetary savings in both resource investment and sending. Also, as an added extra, SGAIM offers notarised electronic invoicing, which provides proof that the invoice was actually sent at the time specified on the certificate. This avoids invoices being lost or clients arguing non-receipt with the aim of delaying payment.
AUTOMATIC VERIFICATION OF ORDERS AND DELIVERY NOTES:
Everyday companies must deal with reconciliation between the information contained in the purchase orders they place and the merchandise or service actually delivered. This task is done manually, requiring a significant, but avoidable, investment in resources.
Within its portfolio SGAIM has a solution that provides automated reconciliation between documents generated upon placing an order until receipt of the delivery note. This easy solution only requires the digitisation of documents in the members’ own workplaces. Within seconds it is sent to SGAIM without the paper documents leaving their offices. Ano-ther option is to send all the physical documentation to SGAIM’s production centres where its custody is guaranteed to comply with security and confidentiality needs. This also saves space in the workplace.
Regardless of the way documents have been digitised, SGAIM will extract data and reconcile by comparing the infor-mation in invoices and delivery notes in order to guarantee data matches between documents.
If the documents don’t reconcile then specialised purchasing personnel can initiate the corresponding claims processes focusing only on those unmatched items.
ELECTRONIC MANAGEMENT OF CONTRACTS:
Cooperative members must manage a certain amount of contracts, whether they be for clients, providers, external personnel, etc. Staff contracts can present varying degrees of complexity depending on employee volume and rotation.
SGAIM has an electronic contract-management solution allowing contracts signed in a member’s workplace to be sent in digital for-mat to SGAIM via secure connection. It simply needs to be digitised by any scanner in a multifunction printer available in the office. This service provides automatic extraction of all necessary information such as that relative to identification, object of the contract, its validity, etc.
This allows alerts to be sent by email, or through SGAIM’s document manager, regarding contract expiration. Greater control is achie-ved over all documents, which are always accessible making it unnecessary to physically locate them.
CERTIFIED SENDING OF ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS:
Cooperatives send communications to their clients, providers, employees, etc. Nowadays, these are normally sent in digital format via e-mail. SGAIM Sending Certify offers certified electronic sending of any type of communication, such as: price lists, overdue invoice reminders, contract modifications, etc.
The main advantage this provides companies with is a certified proof of sending. This reduces problems that can arise from not receiving important communications.
