papersave

[Andrea Meller]

Is anyone using Papersave with Blackbaud? I would love to hear your thoughts on it if you are. Have there been any hiccups? How did you integrate it into your school? What did you do with your historic paper documents? Where was your starting point?

[Sister Elizabeth]

We have just started using Papersave a few weeks ago, and except for a few minor glitches during installation, at least 2 of which were unique to our environment, we are pleased. We are looking forward to having the EE piece also as we generate a good deal of paper that could be attached to the student records.

Our business office is using it the most at the moment and they are very happy with how it is working. It is saving time and paper and cutting down on the copying. We didn't get a scanner for each workstation that will be using it and I've already got requests for more desktop scanners.

When we first looked at it and started to consider it we were all a little perplexed by the details of how it would work, but now that it is installed and running it is easier to use than it is to explain or understand from the demo.

We decided to start with documents related to this school year. Anything older than that has gone to off-site storage which will be gradually phased out as things get old enough to dispose of. Our long term plan is to scan everything that we feel needs to be kept for the life of the school, legal documents etc., and of course any new items created. You are also able to attach documents that currently exit within the network. For example, the 2009-2010 faculty contracts can be attached to the faculty record in payroll and then the secretary can write over the documents for the next year without changing the one that is attached to the payroll record (is that clear - this stuff is really harder to explain than it is to do).

We are not using "fireproof" file cabinets. Back in 1988 our main building burned on a Sunday night. The fireproof file cabinets survived, but as soon as we opened the drawers the paper inside turned to ash. Apparently, if I understand correctly, the paper got so hot and so dry during the fire that once it came into contact with oxygen it just fell apart. So, we knew from that experience that we had to use off-site storage or something digital and backed up if we really wanted to keep things.

I hope this helps. The bottom line is we are pleased with Papersave and how it integrated with Blackbaud. We purchased directly from Papersave, not through Blackbaud. I will have to say their support, although much smaller than Blackbaud, as been responsive and effective too.

If you have other questions feel free to contact me directly.

Sister Elizabeth

[Tom Hart]

I'm using papersave with Quickbooks for Purchase orders, it works well enough.

Unfortunately we couldn't use the Blackbaud Purchase order system, the accountant did not want this activity hitting the General Ledger. So I implemented Quickbooks for PO's and budgeting.