We have been working in partnership with schools and colleges for 30 years, helping find ways to run things more efficiently. School business managers and other key personnel have been essential to the creation and refinement of the mstore for education platform, tackling challenges new and old, and delivering an increasing range of benefits.
We show the auditor how to find information in mstore and then we leave them to get on. In the past we would be fishing paperwork out of files before and during the audit but there is much less of that now and no preparation is needed beforehand."

Appleton Academy
Director of Business and Finance

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More Efficiency and Productivity

  • Time spent filing, retrieving and searching for documents can be reduced by up to 75%*
  • Intuitive and easy to use, saving on training time and ensuring a smooth uptake by users
  • Easy access to documents from other applications, such as your MIS
  • Document lifecycle, retention and disposal activities managed automatically
  • Pre-configured security roles control access to encourage information sharing, whilst ensuring that sensitive information is kept safe

Safeguarding, Security and Control

  • Full audit trail of who has done what in the system by user, action and document type
  • Easy to manage tasks and control of activity
  • Automatic document version control
  • Helps to achieve BSi10008 compliance
  • Audits at the click of a mouse, saving days in preparation time for audits and OFSTED inspections
  • Redaction - or mark-up – tools allow sensitive or non-relevant information to be blocked
  • Remove insecure, uncontrolled file archives

 Disaster Recovery and Resilience

  • Documents and information are protected from damage or loss.
  • Easy inclusion of data existing data backup processes, avoiding the need for additional IT procedures.
Arena is very familiar with the legal obligations surrounding records management in schools and we were confident from the start that they could help us to achieve our goals whilst remaining compliant with all of the rules."

Durham Trinity School
School Business Manager

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Get in touch to talk to our education team.

We'd love to hear how we can hope you and your school.
 
 
Explore mstore

 

Browse some key FAQs

Manufacturing: managing sales orders

Challenges

  • Existing sales order process labour intensive, time consuming, and non-productive
  • A paper intensive environment leads to human error
  • Reliance on printing and sharing of orders to complete process
  • The cost of an electronic odering systems is prohibitively high

Solution Highlights

  • Documents - faxes, emails, paper, and post captured into central system
  • Users can select and process a batch of orders
  • When order fully matched, the ERP system can be updated
  • Everything searchable by order number, supplier name etc
  • Documents retained in digital archive for appropriate time e,g, one month or seven years

Benefits

  • improve accuracy
  • reduce workloads
  • increase efficiency
  • enhance customer service
Financial institution: digitise mortgage and accounts documentation

Challenges

  • Customer queries required call back whilst relevant file was located
  • Employees had to be in office to receive post and access paper files
  • Paper storage and printing emails impacted costs and environmental footprint
  • Exposure to risk and disruption to business whilst paper in transit or storage

Solution highlights

  • All incoming documentation scanned and stored centrallly in mstore
  • Access is securely controlled through user rights, with visibility of changes for audit and document control
  • Documentation is searchable both for current and archived files

Benefits

  • Enable remote working
  • Improve customer experience with immediate handling of queries
  • Reduce waste and become more environmentally friendly
  • Free up employee time searching for documents
Legal: increase profitability of fee earners

Challenges

  • Conveyancing work is fixed fee, so unnecessary human interaction eats into profit margins
  • Existing processes labour intensive
  • Difficult to track and find documentation, slowing process down
  • Customer experience poor
  • Archive management slow and costly

Solution highlights

  • All incoming mail read with full text OCR and validated against 2 criteria e.g. matter number and postcode to ensure filed into correct matter file
  • All exceptions e.g. no reference or handwritten forwarded to user for 'manual' indexing
  • Documentation is searchable both for current and archived files

Benefits

  • Enable remote working increases fee earners without increasing expensive, physical office space and widen the available talent pool
  • Instant acess to all current and archived documentation improving customer experience and saving staff time
  • Reduce time taken to handle mail item from over 40 to 18 seconds, freeing up valuable time
  • Improve customer experience with immediate handling of queries
Accounting: transforming invoice processing

Challenges

  • Paper intensive, manual processes especially vulnerable when volumes increase
  • Manual matching of purchase orders to invoices cumbersome and labour heavy
  • Queries require manual searching for file and call back 
  • Cost of print and storage
  • Approvals process clunky and vulnerable to delay and misplacement of documents

Solution highlights

  • Invoices imported to mstore and references set e.g. cost centre, supplier, invoice number
  • Authorised users can route invoices for approval
  • Approvers can access remotely to approve or reject
  • Processed invoices automatically archived for 7 years 

Benefits

  • Enable remote access to approve and process invoices
  • Improve reconciliation, streamline accrual processes, and produce more accurate financial statements
  • Reduce hassle of audit and retention management
  • Free up resource for more valuable activities
HR: digitise records and documentation

Challenges

  • Time spent filing and retrieving documents such as payslips, forms and training records
  • HR files manually checked for training, retention management and induction process
  • Business exposed if important events missed such as mandatory training, reviews or expiry dates
  • Potential for misplacing documents or losing track of who has what on their desks
  • Archives cumbersome, difficult to manage and awkward to interrogate in event of SAR or claim

Solution highlights

  • Documents such as payslips automatically add documents to mstore and make searchable by references such as employee number, name, NI number, date,
  • Documents also subdivided into type for more granular filing and management
  • New starters and leavers managed through set process with alerts and progress monitoring

Benefits

  • Streamlined working more productive and satisfying
  • Quicker, more informed decision-making
  • Protect business from risk and damage to reputation
  • Meet regulatory requirements e.g. responding in timely way to data request
“I thought it would be difficult to digitise the way we work in HR but it’s been such an easy process. That’s because of Arena they’ve just made it such an easy project.”

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Manufacturing: managing product / parts list

Challenges

  • A regular, costly product catalogue is printed and distributed to customers 
  • Customer calls are regularly received with queries regarding required parts

Solution highlights

  • Customer access to a standard up-to-date product list
  • Individual product data sheets created using mail merge functionality
  • Users can browse all parts, look up product names and identify the correct part number
  • A secure login for each customer creating data relating to the frequency of use
  • Documents also subdivided into type for more granular filing and management
  • New starters and leavers managed through set process with alerts and progress monitoring

Benefits

  • No requirement to produce, print and distribute a product catalogue
  • Reduction in the number of phone calls to request part numbers
  • Reassurance that correct part is ordered
  • Improved image and customer experience through web portal
  • Data on customer activity informs sales strategies
Retail: saving time, space and money

Challenges

  • Valuable space being used to store paper files 
  • Staff time taken up querying Proof of Delivery notes (PODs)
  • No visibility of Goods Received Notes (GRNs) except in paper format at store
  • Confusion between sales ledger and suppliers over poor or missing paperwork
  • Searching for and querying documents is slow and time consuming

Solution highlights

  • Automation of document processes with no printing of GRNs and invoices to remove paper
  • Automated document retention policy management
  • GRNs and PODs scanned at branch and linked to the original order in a central, searchable repository
  • Visibility given to those who require it via secure login
  • Email notification confirms action and timescale to manage discrepancies

Benefits

  • A compliant, scalable and fast searchable system that frees up staff for more value add activities
  • Reduced print, storage and postage costs
  • Free up space to increase sales floor
  • Fewer phone calls between HO and branches
  • Increased efficiencies
  • Improved image and customer experience
School: ease pressure of regular audits

Challenges

  • Preparation for OFSTED audits puts additional pressure on team to ensure all paperwork is ready for scrutiny 
  • Archived information stored inconveniently and unsecurely in roof space, under stages and cleaners' cupboards

Solution highlights

  • Archive scanned and digitised 
  • All incoming documentation - permission slips, reports, personal records, scanned into digital student records
  • Users including auditors access documentation through a secure login

Benefits

  • Instant document retrieval saving time and hassle
  • Elimination of all physical document storage
  • Full legal admissibility and compliance with BS10008 and other regulations
  • Automatic retention management
  • Improved safeguarding
  • Full disaster recovery
Care: safe, secure management of patient records

Challenges

  • Safeguarding of sensitive, personal documents assets with easy, secure access and reference whenever necessary
  • Compliance with obligations under data protection, CQC and other regulations
  • Need access to accurate patient data to support decision-making on care and treatment of vulnerable patients
  • Records must kept safely, with appropriate retention schedules and no longer than is necessary
  • Backlog of paper to file and archive taking over office space

Solution highlights

  • Provide an electronic platform to replace the current paper based storage processes
  • Digitise care plan and other critical documents for easy storage and management
  • Workflow solutions to introduce automation to processes

Benefits

  • Promotes information sharing to improve care, whilst ensuring that confidential information is kept safe
  • No preparation time for audit work or when required to demonstrate compliance with regulation is required - it's all instantly available.
  • Time and cost associated with filing, retrieving and printing documents for manual redaction eliminated
  • Helps to achieve BSi10008 compliance and hassle-free audit-readiness
  • Liberate physical space for other use or reduce cost of premises or off-site storage