A new bank providing financial services to HNW† individuals, business owners, legal, financial and entertainment professionals needs to create a complete library of electronic forms, applications, agreements, disclosures and other documents used for internal operations, business banking and personal account services including ACH, Cash Management, Credit, Loans and Wires.

Case Study: Information Portal at a Property Management Company

Provide Superior Level of Customer Service beginning with efficient internal operations that gives staff and clients timely access to accurate information.

Evolving Compliance Regulations require banking forms be expanded to include additional language and data collection fields to comply with regulatory requirements, such as the Bank Secrecy Act and USA Patriot Act.

Privacy and Security regulations require increased administrative oversight and operational controls over the collection and handling of private data throughout its entire digital and print lifecycle.

Reduce errors and improve accuracy over the quality of information currently being captured from handwritten forms and rekeyed into one or more systems.

The bank already had some documents in Microsoft® Excel® and Word that were created by each department for internal use. Other documents existed as n-th generation print copies of unknown digital origin.

Most documents would be designed and created from scratch. Existing electronic versions would be updated with new language and reformatted to a standard page style. Paper forms would be converted to digital files, updated and formatted.

The majority of the library would be eForms: fillable, or interactive, electronic forms that staff and clients could fill-in, save, print, route and reuse. Each electronic form's usage profile would determine its 'feature set':

• How much information is being collected?
• Is the form for internal operations only or for clients?
• Is it an agreement that only needs to be printed, signed and filed?
• Does the form need to be routed, reviewed, revised?
• Will the information be retrieved and updated in the future?
• What level of security is required? Encryption? Client-level password?

a-d-t worked with the Chief Compliance Office and bank staff to create a library of almost 200 electronic documents. Most were delivered as Adobe® Acrobat® PDF eForms. A number of internal service forms were best served in Microsoft® Excel® or Word.

Document Management: The bank's needs did not warrant installing a packaged document management system, but we still had to manage regular updates, version control, distribution and system backup. This was accomplished by implementing a folder-based storage structure and set of workflow processing conventions.

Production Workflow: Revisions were routed by the most convenient method, email. Since several people could be involved in the editorial process for each form, workflow controls were implemented to avoid the proliferation of stale versions and wasted time reviewing outdated forms (which can plague unprepared 'ad-hoc' email-based document review groups).

Form Automation: Automatic data entry validation, field formatting, calculations and other programmed actions were enabled as needed. These features sped up data entry and reduced the opportunity for error.

Milestones: Project milestone completion dates were ultimately set by the FDIC audit calendar for each banking division. During each audit, we were able to quickly turn around the document revisions needed for compliance.

Leveraging the Benefits of PDF eForms
Governments, banks, businesses and school districts all use Acrobat PDF as the preferred digital document delivery format for bulletins, reports, manuals, rules & regulations, forms and other publications. One good reason: anyone can use the conveniently-accessible, easy-to-use, free Acrobat Reader software to read and print the document when they need to.

Take the time-saving benefits to the next level by turning PDF 'print-and-fill' forms into eForms: fillable, or interactive, electronic forms that can be filled in, saved, routed and reused. This is neither complicated nor expensive, yet offers real potential to reduce the cost of time, labor and materials spent processing paper and rekeying data.

PDF eForms are good for forms that:

• Collect lots of detailed information
• Have lots of numeric data, calculations, totals and percentages
• Are updated and reused on a recurring basis
• Need advanced document security and encryption

To learn more about PDF, go to our GoTo> PDF information page.

When you need help making things happen, a-d-t business professionals can deliver the service and support you need to get the job done on time, within spec and within budget.

• Contact a-d-t via the short web form if you have an initial question about a project.
• Download, complete and return the Request For Comment with an overview of your project needs, goals and requirements. (This is a PDF eForm requiring Acrobat Reader 7 or higher.)