Meet the Client
Sanitation District 1 (SD1) keeps wastewater treatment running for communities across their region. Their team manages critical infrastructure that affects thousands of residents daily. Between conferences, training sessions, and industry meetings, SD1 staff travel frequently to stay current on regulations and best practices. Yet their travel approval process was anything but efficient.
Daily Detour: Paper Trails That Led Nowhere
Before automation, travel requests at SD1 meant paper forms, manual routing, and a lot of waiting. Employees filled out forms by hand. Supervisors reviewed them, sometimes days later. Budget center heads added another layer of approval. Administrative assistants tracked down supporting documents. Cash advances required separate forms. Expense reports meant starting the whole cycle again. Each step created delays, and tracking any single request felt like detective work. Staff spent more time managing paperwork than planning productive trips.
The Solution: Where Forms Travel Faster Than Your Staff Does
SD1 partnered with MCCi to build a paperless travel management system using Laserfiche Forms and Laserfiche Workflow. Instead of chasing signatures, employees now submit digital requests that route automatically to the right people at the right time.
Here’s how it works. An employee opens Laserfiche Forms and submits a travel request. Once submitted, the form lands in the Laserfiche repository. Laserfiche Workflow monitors the folder and immediately emails the employee’s supervisor about the new request.
The supervisor reviews and either approves or declines by updating a single field. If declined, the employee gets instant notification and the process stops. If approved, the budget center head receives an automatic email requesting their review. They follow the same simple approve-or-decline process.
When the budget center head approves, the administrative assistant receives notification. They attach required documentation like conference details or hotel information, then enter the correct fiscal year. After completion, the employee gets the green light to book travel. All forms and documents automatically move to a records folder where retention rules apply without anyone touching them.
The system creates shortcuts in a dedicated “Travel Forms” folder, organized by traveler name and date. Each trip gets its own folder, making retrieval simple.
No More Chasing Cash
Need a travel advance? Employees submit a separate Travel Advance Request form after their travel request gets approved. Laserfiche Workflow routes it through the same approval chain. For advances of $25 or more, accounts payable cuts a check. For smaller amounts, accounts receivable distributes cash. The form automatically joins the travel request in the records folder with proper retention applied.
Expenses That Actually Add Up
Post-trip, employees submit a Travel Expense Report through Laserfiche Forms. The form does the math automatically using JavaScript built into the Forms Designer. Daily expenses calculate into subtotals and totals. Pre-paid expenses subtract themselves. The employee sees their actual reimbursement amount without pulling out a calculator.
“Laserfiche Workflow monitors the folder and sends an email to the employee’s immediate supervisor that there is a new travel request for approval.”
After the budget center head approves, the form routes to either accounts payable (for $25 and up) or accounts receivable (for under $25 or when the employee owes money). Once processed, the employee gets an email notification to collect their check, pick up cash, or submit payment. Everything stays together in one organized trip folder.
The Results: Three Forms, Zero Paper, Complete Control
SD1 now manages all travel requests, advances, and expenses without a single paper form. Approval times dropped from days to hours. Administrative staff stopped playing detective to track down forms. Budget tracking improved because all records live in one searchable system. Every document applies retention rules automatically, keeping SD1 compliant without extra effort.
Staff can now focus on the actual purpose of travel instead of drowning in administrative tasks. With MCCi’s Laserfiche implementation, SD1 turned a frustrating process into a smooth workflow that just works.