Advisors at Berger Financial Group, Inc., (BFG) have always taken pride in providing sound advice and stellar client service, but when it came to their filing system, they knew that improvement was crucial.

“We had file cabinets that were using up valuable space,” says Principal Mark Berger, “not to mention the substantial administrative time required to keep each physical file up-to-date. We knew we needed to improve our filing to improve our efficiency.”

BFG has been in business for nearly 30 years, evolving from a CPA firm to a full-service firm offering financial planning, portfolio management and income tax planning services. The practice originated in Edina, MN, and moved in 2003 to their current location in Medicine Lake (Plymouth), MN. But as the firm’s services and client base grew, so did the complexity of their files.

“Our client files are very deep, complex and extensive,” Berger says. “Essentially, we needed a reliable, efficient paperless system with automatic statement sorting capabilities.” And, thanks to assistance from their Laserfiche reseller, Cities Digital, Inc., that’s exactly what they’ve gotten.

When Patrick Welsch of Cities Digital introduced BFG to Laserfiche in late 2003, staff had never heard of Laserfiche or document management, and hadn’t really considered what efficiency improvements document management could bring to their business processes. Yet after viewing a demonstration, they immediately realized how much time and space they’d save by eliminating bulky paper files and associated file cabinets.

“When we first saw Laserfiche, we were really impressed with the interface and ease of use, especially when it came to scanning,” Berger says.

“This is a very tech-savvy firm that is growing very quickly,” Welsch adds. “They’ve really embraced their Laserfiche system, and have used it to fuel that growth. Every employee has a user license and desktop scanner, so it’s truly a part of their daily work processes.”

Now, instead of digging through file cabinets, BFG’s fourteen staff members retrieve client information from their desktop computers. The firm uses their Laserfiche system to store not just images of scanned paper documents, but also what Berger says are “tons” of Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheets, Word® documents and Outlook® e-mails. Staff can scan phone messages and working documents right from their desks, while the front desk clerk scans printed mail as it’s received.

“We’ve organized an extremely large amount of data in an easy-to-use way, which helps all our staff do their jobs more efficiently,” Berger comments. Each client’s folder contains separate sub-folders for correspondence, tax information, insurance information, invoices and agreements, legal documentation, reports, investment management information, trading and securities executions, and statements. Because the file structure is so well-organized, users can simply browse to the client’s folder and locate exactly the document they’re searching for.

“It’s not just a benefit for us,” Berger says. “It helps our clients, too—they don’t have to fill their basements with old investment statements, reports and tax documents, because we store all those for them.”

Not to mention that the instant access to information helps when an inactive client calls. “No matter how long it’s been since we’ve spoken, we can bring up their information instantly to jog our memory,” Berger says. “It’s tremendous from a customer service standpoint.”

While making client files more easily accessible and searchable has proven very successful, it’s Quick Fields, Laserfiche’s suite of high-volume document capture and processing tools, that has brought BFG the most significant and immediate time-saving benefits.

“We love Quick Fields,” Berger says. It’s not often that a document capture and processing module inspires such devotion, but that enthusiasm is well-founded. Quick Fields automatically sorts thousands of statement pages into BFG’s sophisticated folder structure every week. In fact, Berger remembers that when he first saw Laserfiche, he was immediately impressed with Quick Fields. “Quick Fields sealed the deal for us,” he says. “There is really nothing out there like it.”

Staff no longer have to manually separate and file electronic statements; instead, Quick Fields automatically processes and moves them into individual client folders. Given that the firm receives upwards of 8,000 statement pages monthly, this saves staff a significant amount of time. “We have a different Quick Fields processing session set up for each major company, so it really saves us a lot of manual sorting,” Berger says.

“We tend to track an above-average amount of investment detail, so we need to have all of a client’s statements readily accessible, with complete data.” He adds, “Quick Fields really does that for us.”

Even with this extensive automation, the firm’s Laserfiche system doesn’t require extensive resources to support or maintain. “We don’t have a dedicated support staff,” says Berger. “I personally deal with many of the smaller questions that our staff have, but I really rely on Cities Digital to help out when a more complex question arises. We’ve had nothing but good experience with their support.”

When it comes to audits—often the bane of a financial advisor’s life—Laserfiche is a tremendous help. Berger explains that the instant access to information makes it much easier to answer auditors’ questions, because staff no longer have to search through file cabinets or off-site storage. “We had an audit two days ago,” he says, “and the auditors really were impressed. We were able to pull up documents from the 1980s within seconds. The auditors commented that most advisors have to go off-site to retrieve information from that long ago, and it’s not nearly as accessible as ours was. They really liked it.”

With all the benefits the firm has realized from their Laserfiche system, Berger doesn’t hesitate in recommending it to other investment professionals. “We definitely have recommended Laserfiche to other firms,” he says. “Increased overall office efficiency and auto-sorting of statements are something all firms can benefit from. Not to mention that Laserfiche has enabled us to grow our practice at a much greater rate than our staff. And, with Laserfiche, we’ve been able to provide a greater number of services for our clients that just wouldn’t have been possible before.

“Going paperless is everything we’d hoped it would be,” he adds. “It doesn’t just help us all do a better job, it also helps us provide better service for our clients.”

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Tags: Financial Services, Quick Fields

Posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 5:00 pm under Financial Newsletter, Financial Services, RIAs. You can comment on this post.