Meet the Client
Picture this: Silicon Valley professionals commuting to Central California. Tri Valley families heading to work. It’s 1998, and the Altamont Commuter Express (ACE) just launched with four trains and 1,000 daily riders.
Fast forward to today. San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission (SJRRC) operates a vital transportation network serving thousands more passengers. But as ridership grew, so did something else: paperwork. Lots of it.
Daily Detour: When "Just Processing an Invoice" Takes All Day
You know the drill. An invoice arrives in the mail. Someone scans it. Then email it. Someone else prints it. Another person signs it. Then it gets scanned again.
Meanwhile, vendors are calling. “Did you get my invoice?” Your fiscal staff is hunting through file cabinets. Your department heads are asking about budget status. And you’re explaining why a simple payment takes three weeks.
SJRRC faced exactly this scenario. Paper invoices piled up. Manual routing created delays. Tracking payment status meant playing phone tag and finding past invoices? That required archaeology, not technology.
The agency wanted three things: faster payments, real-time visibility, and automatic retention assignments. Not asking for much and just asking for their time back.
About our Client
CLIENT NAME:
CHAMPION:
Michelle Dahme
POPULATION:
est. 3,280 residents
SOLUTIONS:
The Solution: Building Automation That Matches Your Process
Invoices arrive by mail or email. Either way, they are automatically uploaded to the Laserfiche repository. Staff complete a cover sheet using Laserfiche Forms. It merges with the invoice instantly. Then the magic happens.
Workflow connects directly to SJRRC’s Caselle accounting software through ODBC. It pulls vendor names, vendor numbers, and general ledger data. No manual entry. No typos. No duplicate work. Metadata is automatically exported to CSV files.
Routing follows your approval hierarchy. Staff at each level review and approve. Or reject and send back with comments. No email chains. No lost attachments. No “I never got that invoice” excuses.
After all approvals are complete, the workflow generates an updated cover sheet. It merges invoices with vouchers and places everything in the “Approved” folder. When checks arrive, Quick Fields recognizes invoice numbers and attaches check images to the right files. Even checks that pay multiple invoices are appropriately linked to every relevant file.
The Result: From Paper Chase to Payment Processing
SJRRC’s fiscal team stopped shuffling paper. Approvals accelerated. Payment visibility became instant, not eventual.
But the real win? Finding documents now takes seconds. Budget questions get answered immediately. Audit requests get fulfilled while auditors are still setting up their laptops.
The agency is already planning phase two: extending Forms and Workflow to other departments. Because once you experience automation that actually works, you want it everywhere.
“Don’t be scared to ask for too much or make mistakes. Our paper payment process, though not complex, had many minor nuisances that MCCi built into the business process. In the end, the system is the agencies, and the agency has to be comfortable with how the system is being utilized,” said Nick Perez, Project Manager for SJRRC.
“MCCi took the time to ensure they understood the process during initial build out and was always willing to take the feedback to make sure the system was tailored to the agency’s needs,” Nick added.