URBANA, Ill. – JMK Computerized Tire Dealer Information System Inc. launched a Web-based document management service for tire dealers during the recent Specialty Equipment Market Association Show in Las Vegas.

JMK’s new “Integrated Document Imaging Service” is an additional application to its Tire Dealer Management System software and eliminates the need for tire stores to keep boxes of paper invoices and other files, said Jim Krakower, JMK director of system development.

Although the digitizing of documents has been around for at least 20 years, Mr.Krakower said his firm’s service is the first that allows tire dealership employees to digitize work orders and invoices at the point-of-sale —”the moment the customer’s there, before you give them the original document.”

The system automatically indexes the invoice, he said, eliminating any manual data entry. A dealership needs only a fax/scanner to index, scan and save all documents, and Urbana-based JMK then stores the images on its Internet server in Dallas.

The scanned images can be recalled later from within the JMK application and from any work station at any store. Any follow-up documents to an invoice, such as an alignment machine printout, are attached automatically to the original invoice after an employee scans it into the system, he explained.

“For people who have multiple stores, it’s really helpful if you buy at store A and go to store B to get some service done,” Mr. Krakower said. “Store B gets to see all the documents store A had typically in a box somewhere.”

Dealers who are direct with Goodyear and receive credit memos for national account, purchase/resale and government support deliveries also have a special feature in the software, Mr. Krakower said.

He told Tire Business that a large Goodyear dealer told him at the SEMA Show that his dealership must process more than 1,000 credit memos a week from Goodyear, print them, enter them into the dealership’s system and store them in a binder.

“We figured out a way to automate and store the documents that come from Goodyear without even having to scan it,” Mr. Krakower said. “So now, it’s coming from Goodyear and it’s going to be automatically put into (a dealer’s) system as an attachment to the original sale, eliminating even the need to scan it.”

JMK backs up all the electronic information on its server for three years, then supplies the images on DVD for dealers, he said. The firm charges an initial fee for the service based on the document volume and type of scanning machine, and then a follow-up monthly fee.

“If it’s a regular fax scanner, like you have at Best Buy, then it’s less expensive,” Mr. Krakower said. “If it’s a super high-speed computer scan, let’s say you wanted 10,000 documents you wanted to scan, then it’s a different price.”

He added that the initial fee can vary from hundreds of dollars to almost $2,000 on the high end. JMK also charges a flat $60 fee per month to manage 300 documents, and if a dealership generates more documents in a month, then it can pay 25 cents per extra sheet or buy various package options.

Mr. Krakower said packaged pricing allows unused scans during a month to roll over for future use.

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