The Document Management System: How It’s Benefiting Auto Shops and Dealerships
Recently, Ratchet + Wrench, an auto shop magazine that extensively covers technology and tools, published a post on the benefits one automotive shop experienced after going paperless through eFileCabinet. That’s right: The shop went out of its way to discuss the benefits of eFileCabinet, and there was pitching or public relations on eFileCabinet’s part—just raw user satisfaction.
The article, entitled The Return: eFileCabinet simple system that transformed Westside Auto Pros into a paperless shop has spurned significant interest within the auto world about how companies can quickly go paperless and generate ROI (return on investment) for their dealerships and auto shops.
The Right Document Management System Creates Paperless Processes
Westside Auto Pros is proof that paperless processes improve operations in auto shops and dealers.
In fact, they were able to turn a recurring, daylong process into a simple, 10-minute procedure with eFileCabinet. Melanie Jacobs, the Office Manager at Westside Auto Pros, notes in the Ratchet + Wrench article that she had to dedicate an entire day to filing invoices and similar paper-based items prior to using eFileCabinet.
Given that auto shops generate plenty of paperwork, this sucked the joy out of her job and, likely, the jobs of the mechanics with whom she works. Any good document management system will enable professionals in their field of choice to focus more on what they love and why they got in to that line of work—not paper.
If we all wanted to spend so much time managing paper-based information, we all would’ve become librarians, but eFileCabinet makes it so that doesn’t have to be the case. Not only does this make it an excellent tool for improving worker happiness and productivity, it also makes it an exemplary tool for facilitating professional growth.
Automation? No: Auto-mation? Yes
The Westside Auto Pros shop, located in Des Moines, Iowa, has been in business for more than 20 years, works on all makes and models of cars, and houses 13 car bays in its shop. Understandably, this results in lots of paper, and lots of processes to tally and manage. ROs and other documents such as repair records, although essential, should be managed as efficiently as possible.
Without a paperless system to help, the 14-person team at Westside Auto Pros became so tired of all the room and extra work that its paper filing system held in the office. There’d been consensus for quite some time that an overhaul of the paper-dependent process was needed.
A Good Document Management System = Customer Satisfaction
Westside Auto Pros has a milieu of satisfied customers in their Google reviews section, many of which were given post-eFileCabinet implementation. “I was impressed by the very clean customer area and friendly staff,” and “I love the interior work done to the office,” several customers noted.
Happy customers equal more referrals, more business, and more growth for auto shops and car dealerships. And if a shop or dealership grows quickly, it best be paperless first: Otherwise, there will be more imminent and pressing needs to find a larger office space, and more likely than not, more employees to handle records, which will unnecessarily cut into payroll resources. However, using a document management system benefits payroll in other ways, too:
The Right Document Management System Integrates with Payroll Systems
Many accounting departments in auto dealerships and auto shops love the fact that the eFileCabinet document management system integrates with popular accounting department software like QuickBooks. This is also one of the many reasons Westside Auto Pros opted in to eFileCabinet.
eFileCabinet’s integrations are augmented and streamlined with increasing frequency as the vendor gains traction in more critical vertical markets and increasingly tailors its integrations to benefit specific portions of the automotive vertical.
This way eFileCabinet integrations provide users with an integration of eFileCabinet and popular software they likely already use—minimizing the amount of overhauling needed to adopt and rely on a new document management system.
Exceptional Customer Support from Your Document Management Vendor is Key when Going Paperless
After searching for a system that would work best for Westside Auto Pros, Jacobs notes the company also decided to go with eFileCabinet because of the exceptional support the vendor provided. “… support,” she notes, “answered all my questions. I can call them or go online anytime and get answers within a short period of time.”
eFileCabinet is excited to bring auto shops and dealerships closer to the paperless experience that Westside Auto Pros has so thoroughly enjoyed.
Essentially, the document management system is further proof that auto shops are experiencing operational innovation at unprecedented levels, as noted in the popular New York Times article, Car Repairs a Click Away, Without the Fuss and Bother.
For Westside Auto Pros and other auto shops, car repairs themselves may not yet be a click away, but path to perfecting document management in the automation process has, quite literally, arrived, and easy business processes are, to an increasing degree, placed at the fingertips of auto shop and dealership managers.
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