Local Government:
Frederick County, Virginia - Commissioner of the Revenue
by Christine B. Ilardi, 2007
The Commissioner of the Revenue office in Frederick County has always been proactive when it comes to finding new and innovative ways to improve both their working environment and how they interact with their customers. This sentiment is even highlighted in their online mission statement: “We are dedicated to developing, implementing, and supporting programs and processes which add value to the County and its employees, while staying committed to the County’s key business drivers, its management and prosperity for its citizens.”
So when it came time to deal with all of the paper coming into the office, Commissioner of the Revenue, Ellen Murphy, knew her only option was to secure a document imaging and records management solution once and for all. “[Ellen] knew we needed help controlling, filing and retrieving the paperwork,” said Bev Rosato from the Business License Division of the COR office.
In Rosato’s department alone, there were seven free-standing filing cabinets full of paper, in addition to the four sections of the rolling file that was being used. According to Rosato, most of their biggest pains in the office revolved around the growing number of filing cabinets (and subsequent lack of space): “We needed a solution to assist in cutting down on our filing and retrieval time. Lack of space was becoming a big issue, and the hassle of having to maintain all of the files, even bigger—especially when one section became to compact and required physically moving them to a new location!”
Once Unity Business Systems won the bid to provide a business automation solution for their office, a scanning and storing system was put into place. In September of 2007, the COR office implemented Laserfiche in order to better manage the more than 250,000 pages of tax and assessment-related information received each year.
“Laserfiche and Quick Fields were put into place as part of integration with the County’s BRIGHT system,” said John Geist, Director of Technical Support for UBS. “Bar codes with the customer account numbers were pre-printed on the business equipment and property forms, scanned through Quick Fields and the real-time lookup was then used to extract indexing information from the BRIGHT system. Quick Fields then automatically filed the documents away in the appropriate location in Laserfiche.”
With the new system in place, the COR office was able to scan the entire back file of 2006 Business Property forms within one month. The estimated savings from the entire UBS solution will reach nearly $100,000 annually—drastically lowering retrieval costs, improving customer service and freeing up valuable office space.
“At this point, we are still attempting to get all of our information scanned. However, the information that has been scanned is so easy to access. It saves time and allows the availability of integrating it with other software, such as e-mail,” said Rosato. “The simple integration with e-mail is one of the best features that I have used to date.”
As far as the information that has already been scanned, retrieving those files has become significantly more efficient with the Laserfiche software. “As calls are received, especially from the large leasing companies, we are able to retrieve the information they need and e-mail it right away. The time-saving aspect is remarkable,” said Rosato.
With the office (and all of their paperwork) growing consistently, becoming paperless is the path they prefer, and expect. “By going paperless, I feel we will not have to add more employees in order to keep up with the growth. The scanning enables us to maintain better control over the information, and in a quicker and more organized way,” said Rosato.
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Monday, September 08, 2008 
