Ruth’s Hospitality Group

Challenge

Steak lovers know that Ruth’s Chris Steak House is the place to go for an excellent meal, but most of them are blissfully unaware of operations behind the scenes. The company was using a network of couriers, overnight mail services, and fax machines to shuttle AP documents back and forth between its corporate office and growing number of restaurants. The time-consuming process took up valuable man-hours and resulted in high mail fees, both of which could be easily eliminated with a robust document management system.

Solution

RHG selected DocLink in 2004 to handle the large volume of documents previously managed manually by each location. Using DocLink’s base system plus a workflow module, the restaurants scan daily sales reports, AP invoices, and handwritten checks. Documents are segregated into AP and DSRs (Daily Sales Reports). Once scanned and automatically sent to headquarters, documents are collated and moved into their respective folders depending on document type. Once at headquarters – where DocLink is also used for bank statement and tax return storage and retrieval – Accounting easily processes the documents.

“We rely on DocLink to handle Accounting, Finance, and any other departments that need to hook into the system and access information,” says Corinne Doherty, Business Systems Analyst, noting that DocLink is also used to capture images for daily check runs. “Every time we cut a check in Dynamics GP, the image is automatically captured and fed into DocLink,” says Doherty. “We’re able to retain all of those images for easy access and review at a later date.”

Benefits

DocLink has proven both a money and time saver, streamlining data retrieval capabilities. Accounting no longer sifts through file room boxes to find old invoices or checks. The information is now right at their fingertips. “Being able to quickly go in, review documents, and look up information is the biggest win for us,” says Doherty. DocLink’s easy integration with Dynamics GP is another benefit which seamlessly connects old documents with completed wire transfers and other payment methods. “As a research tool, DocLink has proven itself to be invaluable.”

RHG has also been able to reduce its AP closing process from several weeks to just a few days. “Once the restaurants initiate their side of the process by scanning the invoices in, we are able to get them processed,” says Doherty. “That’s made for a much timelier closing process.” RHG has enjoyed its strong relationship with Altec and Customer Success Manager Lori Corbino. “Lori has been a great asset for us on all issues, upgrades, research, and training,” remarks Doherty, “and Altec as a whole has been an excellent partner, particularly when it comes to tech support.”