Arsenault Associates, working with its customer Aqua America, Inc. developed a new option for the Dossier fleet maintenance software called Invoice Data Import. For fleets that depend upon outside service vendors, the new optional feature eliminates data entry of outside vendor invoices to save time and money, the company says.
Aqua America of Bryn Mawr, Pa., is a water utility company with operations in 13 states from Maine to Texas. It runs 1,200 pieces of rolling equipment that haul for its expanding wastewater division. Approximately 400 vehicles are maintained at company sites in Pennsylvania. The rest are maintained by vendors at remote locations throughout other states.
“We have been using Dossier at our company-run locations in Pennsylvania since 1997,” said Charles Stevenson, Aqua America Fleet Manager. “But as the company began to grow, I found we would need a part-time person just to key data from repair orders and invoices from vendors maintaining our equipment in other states.”
Aqua America found itself processing approximately 1,000 lines of vendor transactions every month, each subject to transcriber errors, Stevenson explained. That’s when Aqua America asked Arsenault to develop a solution to address the problem. Working with Aqua America and its equipment leasing company, Arsenault developed the solution: Invoice Data Import.
Service vendors send invoices and repair orders in electronic files that Invoice Data Import brings directly into Dossier. The feature helps track and evaluate work performed by outside fleet service providers as well as update fleet costs, repair order histories, PM services schedules and meter readings — all at the same time.
Manual data entry — and the errors that go with it — is eliminated. Users have a history of each data import transaction and can produce repair order history and repair order summary reports on service work performed by any and all service vendors.
Aqua America has achieved tangible gains from using Invoice Data Import with its Dossier software. Now, data import is automatic and error free, according to Stevenson, and he’s especially pleased with the range of information imported. “Now the data and the resulting reports are at my fingertips,” Stevenson said. “We are in a much better position, not just to track equipment and costs, but to compare various vendors, now and in the future.”
New users of the Invoice Data Import will find a software setup wizard to set up the program and receive files from vendors in a step-by-step process. Invoice Data Import can be configured to accept data from many different vendors based upon the information they send, according to Arsenault Associates.
Invoice Data Import is now available to all Dossier users as an option with the newly released Dossier 4.4 software.
