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Enter Centric: Partnering with Formstack
As an Indy Chamber member, Centric Consulting has enjoyed a long relationship with the organization — but a “lunch and learn” years earlier, conducted for another Centric client, forged the partnership that would solve the chamber’s problem.
For that presentation, we presented the digital workflow company Formstack as a vendor who could create a fillable web form that would integrate and sync with the customer relationship management (CRM) system Salesforce. Since that presentation, we have completed other projects with Formstack on the Salesforce platform, allowing us to forge a partnership with Formstack and learn more about the company’s capabilities.
When the Indy Chamber approached us with their challenge, we knew we could automate their processes through Salesforce — we simply needed to identify the best way to do it. We selected Formstack as the right vendor for the project.
The chamber had two good head starts. First, their member data was already in Salesforce — though they didn’t know how to use it for automated invoicing. Second, the client already had a Formstack subscription they were using for other purposes, making the first step simple: upgrading their subscription to include Formstack Documents.
We then worked iteratively to connect Formstack Documents to Salesforce using an integrated app in the CRM’s interface. Next, we used Formstack’s document-building capabilities to recreate a new invoice template from our client’s existing template. We added merge fields to pull data like chamber member contact information, amounts due, and due dates from Salesforce. Formstack also allowed us to create custom Salesforce fields to store additional information, such as membership periods.
Formstack Documents also includes APEX, Salesforce’s programming language. Executing an APEX action merged our client’s Salesforce data into the Formstack document template. The templates run through an automated Salesforce screen flow, the system’s backbone. When employees query Salesforce for the month they want to process, the CRM creates a trackable batch record of the matching invoices and validates critical information before the data enters the automated flow. At the end of the workflow, Formstack generates PDF invoices and emails them to members, and it keeps chamber staff informed of the progress along the way.
In some cases, employees may need to intervene, which they can easily do through the Salesforce interface. For example, the Indy Chamber needs the ability to pull out invoices going to their board members’ companies. The flow separates accounts into board- and non-board-member paths and segregates board-member invoices for special processing, such as adding personalized messages. If employees need to verify an invoice, the flow presents an alphabetical list of companies and invoice amounts.
The Results: Faster Reconciliation, Less Training, and Greater Agility
As a result of our integration with Formstack and Salesforce, the Indy Chamber has greatly improved its invoicing process. The automated system now handles about 95 percent of our clients’ previous manual process, transforming their invoicing from a chore that took many hours to a streamlined system employees can run in minutes. In addition, Formstack easily scales to meet the Indy Chamber’s needs, which range from processing 20 to more than 1,000 invoices monthly.
The project delivered several operational improvements. For example, the trackable invoice batches greatly simplify payment reconciliation. The automated system also improved internal handoffs, and the workflow’s clear structure and data validation requirements ensure consistent invoice generation and delivery quality.
One unanticipated benefit arose when the chamber had some staff turnover. Because of the documentation the new system delivers, new staff needed less training to learn the invoicing process. Overall, the automation has freed all staff to perform more value-added work with the time once devoted to creating and distributing invoices manually.
Finally, the automated process adds agility. Recently, the chamber learned it would be responsible for processing a large number of invoices for a partner. The new system allowed our client to pivot by modifying some of the merge fields, quickly completing the unanticipated project. This example demonstrates that our solution is cloneable, scalable, and can be adapted for multiple use cases.
Conclusion
With the right partners, automation is possible for any organization that generates invoices or other recurring documents. The first step is to identify repetitive processes that can be automated but still require some human oversight. Document automation delivers a powerful competitive edge with benefits like reduced staff workload, improved accuracy, enhanced tracking capabilities, and more agile operations.