About
Dennis Cromwell is President of East River Expedite, Inc., which owns and operates 9 UPS Stores. These UPS stores, working as standalone franchises, are part of The UPS Store® network. The franchise venture began in 2015. Each store employs 3 to 5 employees, with a total count of approximately 35 employees. All UPS stores maintain a consistent range of services, including packing and shipping, mailbox rentals, printing and copying, document binding, shredding, laminating, notary, and freight services.
Dennis Cromwell
Owner, and President, East River Expedite, Inc.
The challenge
Dennis Cromwell is the franchise owner of nine UPS stores based in South Dakota, each overseen by one store manager with unique skill sets serving their respective store. While most of his managers excel in customer service, employee training, and operations management relevant to running a successful business, they typically don’t have a background in accounting and bookkeeping. Since back-office responsibilities are not their primary focus, handling these tasks is equally crucial for business growth. This meant that Dennis had to spend significant time training his managers, ensuring store expenses were audited and correctly categorized, handling invoice entry and payment, and training managers on the unique nuances of store expenses. Consequently, his managers found themselves spending 1-2 hours a day managing these back-office tasks, diverting their attention from their primary responsibilities of managing and training their store employees.
To tackle this issue, Dennis decided to hire a contract bookkeeper responsible for coding all expenses into QuickBooks. The goal was to alleviate the time burden on the store managers by having them send invoices to the bookkeeper for processing. However, this solution presented its own set of challenges. Due to the bookkeeper’s lack of familiarity with the intricate details of the UPS network and the business operations, regular communication became necessary among the bookkeeper, Dennis, and the store managers. This involved clarifying expense codes and explaining the reasoning behind specific purchases, resulting in a similar investment of time as if the managers had handled it themselves.
In addition to this contract bookkeeper, Dennis hired an accountant to handle payroll, quarterly taxes, and income taxes. In the end, the cumulative costs of hiring a bookkeeper and an accountant and engaging in frequent back-and-forth communication with the store managers started to outweigh the potential savings in both time and cost. This approach no longer made sense.
The solution
After receiving a promotional postcard from Docyt in the mail, Dennis’s curiosity led him to explore the Docyt website for more information about AI-powered bookkeeping. Being an early adopter of technology solutions, he was receptive to the idea of automation in bookkeeping. The concept of Docyt being powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ability to connect with bank and credit card feeds caught his attention. Since each manager was authorized to use their American Express card, they typically paid company expenses with these credit cards or by ACH bank transfers to keep everything digitized. Dennis liked Docyt’s real-time bank and credit card feed with 12,000+ financial institutions.
Dennis was drawn to Docyt’s AI-powered approach to automating expense management. It uses AI to analyze payment history, review expenses, and categorize them by extracting the correct data. Docyt also handles multi-store location accounting. As an example, the company receives a single invoice for business insurance that covers multiple entities so this means the expense is split and recorded across all nine stores, which can be done using Docyt’s automated split invoice feature. The AI technology’s ability to learn from historical transactions and patterns eliminated the need for extensive training on their expense nuances and saved Dennis and his team valuable time. Docyt’s AI technology’s ability to adapt and improve his knowledge of transactions over time was particularly beneficial, allowing Dennis to spend less time reviewing each expense item within the system.
The results
1-2 hours/day across 9 locations
Time Savings
Dennis implemented Docyt in a phased approach. He did a pilot implementation with one UPS store, conducting a 30-60 day trial to assess Docyt’s success. The pilot launch was successful, so he moved forward with implementing one store per month, gradually expanding the use of Docyt to the remaining UPS stores.
The implementation of Docyt yielded significant improvements and positive outcomes for Dennis and his team. The solution brought a consistent monthly delivery of profit and loss (P&L) statements and timely bank statement reconciliations. In the past, his previous bookkeeper managed other clients, which impacted the timeliness of entries and bank reconciliations. With Docyt, Dennis reduced the need for an external accountant, streamlining the preparation of tax returns and resulting in cost savings. Each UPS store manager saved approximately 1-2 hours daily with Docyt’s automated expense management. In addition, the solution provided consistent and reliable financial reporting, instilling confidence in the accuracy of the data. This newfound trust allowed Dennis to spend less time reviewing and cross-checking the numbers, enabling him to devote more attention to business growth.
Docyt seamlessly integrates with The UPS Store’s existing financial reporting system, adapting smoothly to interface changes without causing disruptions, another positive result of using Docyt. Last, the support team behind Docyt demonstrated a deep understanding of The UPS Store’s business needs, promptly addressing any technical issues. Dennis has become a champion of Docyt, happily recommending Docyt to his network or other UPS store owners with similar bookkeeping challenges.
Docyt’s AI and automation is powerful. It's given so much time back to my team.
Dennis Cromwell
Owner, and President, East River Expedite, Inc.
