Williams, Pitts & Beard – Mississippi

“We wanted to integrate a proven solution with proven results. We saw Contentverse live and were able to see the functionality we had envisioned in action. Computhink also offered the personal approach we were seeking – providing us with the kind of partner we wanted to work with as our business grew.”
– David Pino, Network Administrator at Williams, Pitts & Beard

Williams, Pitts & Beard, PLLC of Hernando, Mississippi is a well-respected and distinguished Certified Public Accounting firm. Providing a myriad of financial, accounting and litigation services ranging from corporate and personal tax planning and preparation to cash flow, budgeting analysis and estate planning.

The firm services more than 1,000 individual clients and more than 250 commercial clients each year. They pride themselves on providing close, personal attention to clients and aim to improve offerings with continual investment of time and resources in advancing technology.

The Business Challenge

The amount of paper that staff had to retain for every client he/she dealt with was piling up. In fact Williams, Pitts & Beard had a complete office wall dedicated to the storage of client records in ten large filing cabinets.

“We simply ran out of space and had no more room to put anything,” said Danny L. Williams, managing partner at Williams, Pitts & Beard. “While we have to maintain documents for our daily reference and access, the problem was made greater by the fact that legally we have to retain documents and files for up to seven years.”

As regulations and conditions in the tax business change frequently, accountants need to be able to access files as quickly as possible. On a day-to-day basis, procedures to complete a tax return were complicated by having to manually handle paper documents, track previous folders, retrieve other information and file all related paperwork.

The Solution

With these requirements in mind, Williams, Pitts & Beard began a search for a solution that was not only functional but also easy to use and simple to implement. Additionally, the management team did not want something that took up a lot of IT resources, and it had to be cost effective.

Having met with a number of document management vendors, Williams, Pitts & Beard selected Computhink’s Contentverse application. Contentverse had all the functionality required and met the company’s compatibility requirements, offering an open architecture solution with minimal IT resources.

Contentverse is a robust document and imaging management system designed to reduce users’ dependency on paper and to streamline the document archiving, searching, retrieving and annotating process.

The Results

Williams, Pitts & Beard tested all the components and transitioned their users to a full document management software environment within a week.

Since then, the company has moved more than 1,000,000 paper documents into the Contentverse system, and electronically manages more than 98% of its previously paper files. Williams, Pitts & Beard has eliminated the wall of filing cabinets it had, and made sustainable reductions in hard-cost spending associated with copier and fax systems. More importantly, their staff have benefited from an unexpected improvement in productivity.

Prior to Contentverse, the accounting process, while efficient, took up to 30 steps, from originating a document to handing off to someone else, all the way through filing and retrieving documents. This took a significant amount of time and involved many people in different departments. Williams, Pitts & Beard now originate needed documents at the desktop and automatically archive them directly to Contentverse. Staff can now share documents to other users through Contentverse. Document images are available in seconds with a few clicks of a mouse. This enables any member with appropriate security credentials (and/or other departments) access to the files; giving added support for various business initiatives, improving communication and customer service.

Conclusion

“We could have never imagined the type of results that we have attained from this solution,” explains Rebecca A. Beard. “We depend greatly on our employees and how quickly, efficiently and accurately they can complete a project like a tax return. Contentverse has eliminated at least 80% of the time needed in our processes, giving our employees more time to spend cultivating relationships with our clients.” Williams, Pitts & Beard now plans to resell the solution to other CPA and legal firms through its IT consulting division, having seen the improved productivity and success of this initial implementation.

By freeing up physical work space, Williams, Pitts, & Beard has been able to replace the filing cabinet area with space for more employees, improving the working environment at the firm. “Overall, Computhink has provided us with a cost-effective solution that offered all the functionality we needed, without requiring extensive programming or customization,” concluded Williams, Pitts & Beard’s Network Administrator, David Pino.

 

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