TXI is an industry leading supplier of building materials, including cement, concrete and aggregate. The company, which is publically traded on the NYSE and had sales of almost $1B in 2007, has steadily grown over the years through prudent management and a competitive advantage as the lowest cost supplier in the region.

Despite the success of the stock price, one particular concern for TXI was the ever-growing mountain of paper generated as a result of the company’s accounting and billing operations. TXI produces and delivers millions of tons of cement every year, producing three or four million delivery tickets for thousands of customers. With most customers on credit terms, TXI issues monthly invoices and aggregates all of the customer’s delivery tickets into one comprehensive bill. TXI then relies on its customers to reconcile the bill with their delivery tickets.

Inevitably billing conflicts arose over the years and the only means TXI had to resolve these issues was to manually comb through rooms full of boxes and filing cabinets stuffed with paper documents. These unruly archives were filed by document type (invoice, tickets, checks), rather than being organized by customer. Ultimately, this intensely manual and haphazard method of matching delivery tickets to the customer bills resulted in significant overhead costs, massive delays in bill processing and unacceptably long account lifecycles. It was costing TXI time, money and, perhaps most importantly, the goodwill of its valued customers.

Business Challenge

Implement an automated document workflow solution that would do away, once and for all, with the room full of unmatched tickets, checks and invoices. TXI envisioned a content management system that would convert paper documents to readable PDF files and digitally match the nearly 4000 monthly invoices with the associated delivery tickets, creating a comprehensive customer file.

Solution

With Adlib Software's document conversion technology forming a strong foundation, TXI began to build a significantly better billing process. Information arrived in the workflow from several sources, including data from multiple delivery tickets and customer files, and was merged into one of TXI’s invoice templates – different business units required different templates – to produce a merged PDF invoice with all the associated backup documents. Customers could now call to inquire about their accounts and receive a merged PDF file by email with all of their delivery tickets before the call was over. In addition, TXI’s sales force was able to tap into the power of Express Server to get a quick 360 degree snapshot of each customer’s account activity, rather than taking their chances rummaging through the boxes of paper documents.

Benefits

• Integrated seamlessly with existing business applications, including the Content Management system
• Automated document billing and audit trail
• Dramatic reduction in payment cycle times
• Improved Customer satisfaction, resulting in increased revenue
• Enabled for creative solutions to serve internal users and customer base
• High quality PDF output and accuracy