Bernalillo County
Government organization delivers emergency financial assistance to hundreds of households during the COVID-19 pandemic
About Bernalillo County
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Founded:1852
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Total area:1,167 square miles
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Largest city:Albuquerque
Summary
Challenges
- Many families were at risk of eviction as COVID-19 disrupted the economy.
- Thousands of additional invoices needed to be processed monthly to deliver emergency assistance.
Solution
- Replaced manual, time-consuming processes with efficient digital workflows.
- Enabled a highly automated, direct-pay process to handle the rise in pandemic-driven assistance payments.
Results
Processed rental assistance payments 95% faster
Paid 85% of invoices within 30 days
Freed AP specialists from repetitive tasks
Challenges
- COVID-19 brought severe economic disruption to Bernalillo County, New Mexico
- Hundreds of families faced potential eviction
- Thousands of emergency support payments needed to be processed each month
With over 676,000 residents, Bernalillo County is the most populous county in New Mexico, covering an area of 1,167 square miles. To serve thousands of individuals and businesses across the region—including the state’s most populous city, Albuquerque—the County offers a wide range of services, including health and public safety, public works and economic development programs.
Behind the scenes, Bernalillo County relies on its finance division to help provide for the County’s needs through effective budgeting, accounting and procurement of goods and services.
Robert Martinez, accounts payable manager for procurement and business services at Bernalillo County, explained, “As a government entity, it’s essential for the County to be a good steward of taxpayer money. An accurate and efficient accounts payable [AP] operation is a key enabler of this goal, as it helps us ensure that vendors delivering services for the County are paid in a timely manner.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the ability to process payments on time became more important than ever for Bernalillo County. As social distancing measures and shelter-in-place orders severely disrupted the local economy, the County aimed to rapidly distribute emergency assistance to households unable to pay rent or utilities.
“In Bernalillo County, the Relief of Emergency Needs for Tenants [RENT] assistance program was designed to support individuals and families with the personal financial impacts of COVID-19,” Martinez continued. “Prior to the pandemic, the County processed between 65,000 and 70,000 invoices each fiscal year—but when the RENT program was launched, our invoice volumes jumped."
“We were faced with a tough challenge. We needed to continue to ensure that our vendors were being paid promptly, helping them to maintain healthy cashflows and stay operational. At the same time, it was vital to provide additional support to help families stay housed and sheltered during the pandemic.”
If we’d been processing RENT assistance payments manually, it would have taken five hours to get each application approved and ready to pay. With the automated workflow we’ve built in the OpenText solution, we can get those payments ready to go in less than 15 minutes—95% faster.
Solution
Bernalillo County developed a highly automated AP process that dramatically accelerates the invoice processing lifecycle by leveraging OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Management for SAP® Solutions and OpenText™ Core Capture for SAP® Solutions.
Products deployed
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OpenText™ Core Capture for SAP® Solutions
Digitize incoming content, identify the content and automate its delivery to business processes within SAP ECC and S/4HANA
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OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Management for SAP® Solutions
Streamline financial processes across all departments
Transformed manual processes
By harnessing digital workflows, the County successfully navigated the unprecedented challenges of COVID-19, delivering on-time payments despite a massive surge in invoice volumes.
Bernalillo County laid the foundation for its successful response to the pandemic many years earlier, when the organization engaged OpenText to replace manual, time-consuming processes with efficient digital workflows, powered by Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions and Core Capture for SAP Solutions.
“Prior to our work with OpenText, it was extremely difficult to process invoices in line with our service-level objectives,” recalled Martinez. “Because the AP process depended heavily on moving paper from desk to desk, tracking down the status of individual invoices was also labor-intensive. With OpenText Vendor Invoice Management, we have a single point of control for the entire invoice lifecycle—eliminating most of this manual work.”
Using the OpenText solution, the County’s AP team scans paper invoices and uploads electronic invoices sent to a central mailbox. After extracting the necessary data via intelligent optical character recognition, the solution automatically routes invoices to the relevant approvers. Finally, the AP team posts and pays the invoice.
Automated emergency fund delivery
By building on its existing AP workflows, the County rapidly developed a highly automated direct-pay process to handle the huge uptick in RENT assistance payments during the pandemic.
Martinez commented, “First, our economic development department processes the RENT assistance applications and then forwards all the required documentation to the AP team. Next, we use data capture to rapidly bring the information into OpenText Vendor Invoice Management, which automatically collects the final internal approvals and posts the invoice for payment.”
OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions allows us to make payments faster—helping us better serve residents, businesses and the whole Bernalillo County community.
Results
By leveraging automated invoice processing capabilities from OpenText, Bernalillo County’s lean team of just nine AP professionals paid out more than $10.6 million in financial assistance to residents across the region.
Processed rental assistance payments 95% faster
Equipped with the ability to process invoices at speed and scale, the County has played an important role in mitigating the economic and social impacts of COVID-19 for households and businesses across the region. Thanks to the RENT assistance program, more than 1,700 households and counting have alleviated rent and/or utility arrears and avoided eviction during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that if we didn’t have a solution like OpenText Vendor Invoice Management, we wouldn’t have been able to cope with the influx of invoices we’ve seen in recent years,” stated Martinez. “If we’d been processing RENT assistance payments manually, it would have taken five hours to get each application approved and ready to pay. With the automated workflow we’ve built in the OpenText solution, we can get those payments ready to go in less than 15 minutes—95% faster.”
Paid 85% of invoices within 30 days
Using the built-in analytics capabilities of Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions, the County closely monitored its performance against its service-level targets, helping the organization ensure it hit its targets for on-time payments despite the increased pressures of COVID-19.
“Our goal is to pay at least 85% of all invoices within 30 days,” said Martinez. “Using built-in analytics from OpenText, we could see that we were hitting that target all the way through the pandemic. We are delighted that we have been able to get financial support where it’s needed most, and the success we’ve had over the last two years gives us confidence that OpenText Vendor Invoice Management continues to be the right solution for Bernalillo County.”
Freed AP specialists from repetitive tasks
By liberating AP specialists from repetitive manual tasks, the County is promoting a higher-quality employee experience that helps it retain talent in a highly competitive marketplace.
Martinez confirmed, “The difference between the previous manual process and today’s digital flows is like night and day. Members of our AP team who were working in the department before the OpenText solution now can’t imagine life without it; it’s made an incredible difference to their satisfaction. Retaining dependable, knowledge staff is tough for all sectors right now—and if we can make it easier for our people to do their jobs, it will definitely help with retention.”
Looking to the future, the County plans to enhance its invoice processing capabilities further. The organization aims to encourage more of its vendors to switch from paper to electronic invoices—boosting AP efficiency, reducing waste and enabling innovations such as automated fraud detection.
“We’ve barely scratched the surface of what the solution can do, and we’re excited to work with OpenText to further enhance our capabilities,” concluded Martinez. “OpenText Vendor Invoice Management for SAP Solutions allows us to make payments faster—helping us better serve residents, businesses and the whole Bernalillo County community.”
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