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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

If you need a programmer to set up and use a commercial software package, you’re implementing an outdated software model.

This is particularly true when buying an IBM i paperless processing solution (report automation & document management) to use in a banking environment.

Solving the Trouble with IT & Banking

Banks are notorious for not having deep IT skills or night staff. They run lean and don’t have a lot of time or resources to implement an IBM i paperless processing solution.

Banks not only need to find a good paperless processing solution, they need to find a good solution that doesn’t involve massive amounts of programming time to realize these benefits:

• Integration with their IBM i core banking solution, such as Jack Henry & Associates or FIS
• Minimal programmer involvement with forms design and delivery for items such as customer statements, bank announcements, or past due notices
• Financial report modification to reformat and split IBM i spooled file reports for different situations
• Significant ROI savings at an inexpensive price

Here’s how a good third-party paperless processing solution helps you achieve these goals while using minimal programming resources.

Seamless Integration with Popular Banking Packages

Your paperless processing package should seamlessly integrate with the output generated by your IBM i banking software. Whether you’re running Jack Henry, FIS, or another popular “i” banking package, look for a vendor who has already tackled the integration issues connecting your banking software reports and data with your report automation and document management software.

Many paperless processing packages provide vendor-specific “templates” for packages like FIS or Jack Henry. Ask your vendor how they integrate with your core banking solution and don’t settle for software that requires DIY programming efforts to convert your core reports into universal file formats and electronic forms.

Forms Design Where it Belongs

IBM i forms such as customer statements are really marketing pieces. They represent your business to customers, business partners, and the public at large. Customer-facing documents containing IBM i data need to be as crisp and professional looking as possible. Here are a few of the IBM i generated forms that banks send to their customers. These documents need to use the same professional branding standards as your other marketing pieces.

• Account statements
• Credit card and other bills for services
• Past due notices
• Other emails and documents triggered by customer behavior

Well-written paperless processing software lets your marketing, design, and legal people worry about electronic forms design, freeing up your programmers to do what they do best: creating killer apps. Many packages such as FormFlex provide the flexibility for moving forms design out of IT and into core business functions where it was intended to be.

Financial Report Modification Without Programmers

Banks run on reports that must be segmented and delivered to many different audiences, including executives, branch managers, auditors, customers, and bank examiners. By itself, a package like Jack Henry can generate hundreds of reports each day. While standard IBM i bank reports contain valuable information, it isn’t always appropriate to send out a complete report without modification. Here are some things a bank needs a paperless processing solution to auto-change before distributing or archiving electronic versions of standard reports.

• Mask sensitive financial data in distributed reports.
• Remove unnecessary or restricted report columns.
• Rearrange report columns to group like data together.
• Split or “burst” reports to distribute report subsets that only contain the information your recipients need.
• Sort an existing report.
• Convert existing reports into universally accepted formats such as XLSX or PDF.
• Update report headings or static text in older reports or to change an institution’s name after a purchase.

A good commercial IBM i paperless process can do all this and more for distributed banking reports. You don’t have to contract with scarce and expensive programming talent to distribute slightly different versions of existing reports. Good report automation software can automatically grab existing bank reports, modify them for your intended audience, convert them to a universal file format such as PDF or XLSX, and email them to your users.

Valuable, Inexpensive, and Residual ROI

Banks can realize all these benefits and more with popular IBM i paperless processing software from companies like DRV Tech. These packages are a triple treat. They:

• Provide a full range of IBM i report automation and document management capabilities that will satisfy bank distribution and archiving needs.
• Relieve expensive and scarce programming talent from creating and maintaining DIY solutions for report automation and forms processing.
• Provide a significant Return on Investment (ROI) when implementing paperless processing.

Many packages are inexpensive and fairly priced to fit into a banking budget. If you’re ready to look at paperless processing solutions for banking, contact us at DRV Tech for help in looking at your options. And don’t forget to check the helpful articles I’ve listed below that further discuss these topics.

We spell out the benefits of paperless reporting in this helpful, everything you need to know eGuide. Click below to get started.

5 Ways to Secure Sensitive Data when Distributing IBM i Reports

Four Keys to Fair Software Pricing

Get Your Programmers Out of the Forms Design Business

Have You Bursted an IBM i Report Today?

How Much Can IBM i Paperless Processing Save You?

What is IBM i Paperless Processing?