PairSoft Helps The Zidian Group Free Up Storage Room & Eliminate 35 Filing Cabinets

The Client

The Zidian Group, based in Boardman, Ohio, was founded in 1948. It began as a food importer and distributor, but today it has grown to incorporate many food-related verticals additionally, including manufacturing, gift baskets, restaurants and real estate. Of its approximately 170 employees, one of every four uses PairSoft.

The Challenge

What the company needed was an AP solution that would encourage standardized processes, while helping with workflow and enabling staffers to quickly find necessary information across its multiple entities.

Before PairSoft, Zidian employees would hunt through 35 file cabinets at the corporate office or make a trip to a warehouse, where documents more than a year old were hidden inside wrapped pallets of boxes. “You don’t think about that information until you need it,” says Greg Dzurinda, Zidian’s computer information systems supervisor.

Dzurinda recalls going in search of a paperless solution and seeing demos for at least two dozen solutions before finding PairSoft: “They all do similar stuff but with PairSoft it was not only how much it does but also the flexibility it provides. The ability to design custom scripting to the workflow was something we were looking for.”

The Solution

Dzurinda and a co-worker spearheaded the installation. “We went to workflow training—I highly recommend it—and two months later we went live,” he recalls. “Really getting buy-in was the scariest part. The AP processors were like, yay! Some of the salespeople and big coders were like, oh no! But once they saw the benefit they got more involved.”

For payables, Dynamics GP pulls up historical documents to ensure vendors are being paid on time. A PairSoft pop-up window provides document assistance with the transaction, ensuring papers are correctly coded. “Especially on the payable side, when want a date range, we just run a Smart List and give them a spreadsheet,” Dzurinda says. “Before we were handing them binders.”

Now Zidian’s payables are fully automated and Dzurinda and his co-workers worked with PairSoft to create custom scripting to his company’s specifications, with PairSoft staffers advising by phone. “My biggest concern with new vendors is how fast they respond in support cases and the knowledge of people,” he says. “We’ve been burned before. We have stuff with a shelf life that we have to be concerned with. I have not had any issues with PairSoft.”

The Results

Though the company had only been using PairSoft less than six months at the time of this case study, Dzurinda says he already considers it invaluable: “There was a space savings and time savings, plus the integrity of the documents…”

Co-workers are already reaching out with suggestions for other ways to make their workflow easier, and most of the time he says he is able to accommodate solutions: “Even the sales support staff is starting its own project to get a sales packet scanned into PairSoft so they don’t have to print everything.”

The Zidian Group is also excited about implementing PairSoft’s mobile app which will enable national sales reps offsite to code and approve invoices. Meanwhile, the group is on track to eliminate all paper storage for payables by the start of 2017, freeing up enough room for an additional office. “We’re hoping to clear out that file room all together,” he says. “Starting January 1, we’re just going to scan and shred. It’s such an easy product. It does so much.”

We were looking for primarily an AP solution. When I stumbled across PairSoft what really sold it was everything else it did. It opened the doors for us to go paperless.

Greg Dzurinda
CIS Supervisor, The Zidian Group

Measures of Success

• Perceived professionalism increased with quick customer service responses
• 35 file cabinets and an entire room for storage is being repurposed
• Hours are no longer wasted rummaging through file cabinets and warehouses
• Audits are much simpler