Goldcrop is a specialist seed supplier and distributor that serves the agriculture, horticulture, home lawncare and bird food markets. Established in 1985, the company’s 80 employees are based across three locations in the Republic of Ireland. Goldcrop worked with Quadient to transform its outbound invoice and statement processes, dramatically reducing the administrative burden on staff and supporting remote working.
The challenge: to streamline a labour-intensive manual process
Goldcrop sends out invoices on a daily basis and around 1,000 statements once a month. These were labour-intensive, manual processes involving twice daily invoice print runs of around an hour a time for one or two members of staff and a day’s work for statements once a month.
“We had streamlined our invoices to one print point but they, and the monthly statement runs, were still manually produced to send to post,” said Michael O’Brien, Goldcrop’s Finance Director. “We had got to the stage where we could automate completely.”
Goldcrop already used a folder inserter and franking machine from Quadient. O’Brien reached out to his account manager there, intending to discuss a potential equipment upgrade to help meet the company’s volume demand.
However, O’Brien was also open to the potential to automate aspects of the mail processes to gain efficiencies. He said: “We’re always looking for an edge, in relation to digitalisation and automation. By streamlining the system, you can improve service to the customer.”
Ultimately, O’Brien was interested in the best solution to achieve Goldcrop’s aims to issue invoices and statements efficiently, streamline processes and remove the jeopardy of print runs failing.
The process: calculating return on investment
Quadient met with O’Brien to discuss Goldcrop’s requirements and the solutions that could help improve its situation.
Quadient’s proposed solution would address the volume demand, reduce the time that staff spend processing outbound mail and scale to meet future mail needs, should they change. The team forecast Goldcrop’s return on investment from making a change and presented the figures to O’Brien on a conference call.
“Quadient led us through the whole thing, from top to bottom,” said O’Brien. “Obviously, there was a payback, where we didn’t need to invest in new machinery and we were reducing time and effort involved, so we could see it was a win-win.”
To implement the solution, Quadient subsequently organised training for Goldcrop’s employees.
The solution: Quadient Impress
Quadient Impress, a comprehensive outbound document management platform, automates communications workflows and enhances flexibility through options to print documents to post or send electronically.
Goldcrop’s credit controller now only has to monitor invoice production, ensure they load up every day and check the Quadient system to verify that mail goes out.
The result: less time spent on manual tasks and hybrid working support
Goldcrop has succeeded in reducing the labour involved in its outbound invoice and statement processing and has made associated cost savings. Now, mail management requires only one person to monitor that everything is working correctly whereas before, it involved two employees carrying out manual and repetitive tasks.
“We have reduced the administrative burden of the process, and the credit controller can now manage it without it impacting their other duties,” says O’Brien. “Now, it takes very little time – 10 minutes or less – down from around two to three hours.”
Goldcrop has also seen a reduction in its cost of postage by transitioning to the new way of working. Michael said: “It has helped us streamline”, adding that the solution is seamless and straightforward and that staff are satisfied using it. A bonus benefit is that the Credit Controller, who is the main operator of Quadient Impress, can work remotely three days a week and process outbound mail remotely from there.
O’Brien added: “Our working relationship with Quadient is very satisfactory and things ran smoothly from day one.”