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Company Profile
Keystone Collections GroupSM is comprised of top professionals in tax, law and accounting. It specializes in debt collection, providing high returns at low cost. Its success depends largely upon speed and efficiency, which it has further enhanced with DocuClass Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software.
The Problem
Keystone represents creditors – individuals who are owed money. Speed when contacting debtors dramatically increases the chances of success. If follow-up with debtors is not prompt, or if paperwork slows the process down, collections can be lost.
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Keystone regularly mails hundreds of thousands of notices to prompt debtors to make payments on their obligations. These letters are just the beginning of a paper trail that may lead to debt settlement or, in the worst scenario, litigation. To be prepared for litigation, it is critical to preserve all correspondence with the debtor. These correspondence trails become the case files for the litigators.
Keeping track of thousands of correspondence trails is challenging. Keystone needs to handle more than sixty different types of documents. Some of the documents that Keystone must preserve, for example, are receipts from the post office, acknowledging that the debtor has received notice.
The actions which Keystone takes depend upon circumstances which can vary greatly from one case to the next, so they must have a business process which accommodates all of these variations. If Keystone does not receive a receipt from the post office, for instance, they may begin a separate process of trying to determine the correct or updated address information. If they do receive a receipt, then another process begins with a schedule of deadlines and additional notices. An exception to this process may occur if a debt is settled.
Keystone’s litigation phase is a particularly complex process with many exceptions. If Keystone decides that litigation is necessary, it must wait a mandatory number of days, send and collect more mail receipts, and pull credit and accounting reports before it can proceed.
Keystone's legal department was generating huge numbers of physical paper files for each of their attorney’s cases. There were plenty of manual, tedious activities such as making copies, stapling, punching holes, making folders, repeatedly filing and retrieving those folders, and maintaining row after row of filing cabinets. The department was also dependent upon staff to manually monitor the calendar, keeping critical events happening and legal documents moving through the system in a timely manner. The result was that Keystone was not utilizing personnel to their potential.
The Solution
Keystone had two objectives with their DocuClass implementation – storing/retrieving their documents electronically and automating their business processes. Using DocuClass, Keystone developed a sophisticated workflow to automate the multiple stages of the collection process. DocuClass’ document management software has decreased the manual tasks associated with physical paperwork, while DocuClass workflow automation pushes and drives the collection activity to get timely results. For example, the DocuClass workflow sends alert messages to key personnel when a particular document queue is filling up, or when paperwork stays too long at a particular stage without response from the debtor.
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DocuClass document management stores and retrieves electronic document images which Keystone can track throughout the system, with no chance of documents being lost or misfiled. When an attorney prepares to litigate a case, DocuClass automatically pulls all the required documentation into a queue for printing.
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Return On Investment
With workflow automation Keystone is able to do more in a shorter period of time. Instead of spending time on
manual paperwork, staff can focus on activities directly related to collections.
Keystone is now dramatically expanding the use of DocuClass and plans to automate the workflows of two additional departments.
Keystone estimates that DocuClass reduced the time staff had previously spent creating and managing paperwork through the collections process by 20%. It has also increased its client base significantly without proportionally increasing staff and overhead. |
With DocuClass, Keystone believes it can grow much larger without hiring more staff for each new client. At the time Keystone began implementing their first DocuClass workflow, the space occupied by filing cabinets was a serious issue. Keystone has grown dramatically since then, however, and will reclaim the cabinet space for office use.
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