Moving to IFS Cloud tends to surface a problem nobody put on the project plan: documents. IFS can produce them, so that isn’t the issue. The issue is that hardly anyone wants a standard one.
Finance has firm views on how invoices and payment documents should look, operations needs shipping paperwork that keeps each carrier happy, and procurement wants purchase orders in the company’s branding. All whilst customers ask for their information laid out their own way. Add those up and a document that looked simple on day one becomes a small project of its own.
Once you’re on IFS Cloud, finding the data is rarely the hard bit. Controlling what happens to it next is harder, because someone has to decide how it’s presented, formatted and delivered, then keep it right as requirements shift.
A single document might have to follow strict brand guidelines, show or hide content depending on conditions, appear in several languages, go out through different channels, meet one customer’s particular demands, archive itself and print the moment someone hits the button. Standard reporting tools usually start to struggle somewhere along that list.
Lasernet has worked alongside IFS customers for years, giving them full control over their document processes. Invoices, purchase orders, statements, remittance advices, labels, forms and customer communications can all be designed exactly as you want them and sent wherever they need to go.
What matters most day to day is how quickly you can change things. Business users can respond when requirements move (and they always do) instead of living with whatever the last version looked like.
It’s easy to assume document generation belongs to one application. In practice, most organisations run IFS next to a CRM, a warehouse system, finance software, an e-commerce platform, HR tools and whatever applications their industry demands. Every one of those holds information a document might need.
Lasernet pulls data from several sources and combines it in a single document process. Your document strategy can reach beyond IFS, with Lasernet acting as the document platform for the whole organisation.
Printing frustrates people more than you’d expect. We hear about jobs stuck in queues, slow output, several print solutions running side by side, local workarounds and someone stepping in by hand to get a document out of the door.
It sounds like it should be simple yet in a large organisation it almost never is, which is why printing has sat at the centre of Lasernet from the start. Organisations around the world rely on it for high-volume output, with documents routed intelligently so the business-critical ones arrive quickly and reliably. Whether a document is headed for a printer at one of several sites, an inbox, an archive, a cloud repository or another business system, Lasernet gets it there without holding up operations.
Plenty of IFS customers are taking a hard look at Crystal Reports. Some want to modernise legacy document processes; others are moving to IFS Cloud and would rather build on a platform designed for what’s ahead than keep propping up an old one.
Lasernet replaces Crystal Reports for document generation and then goes further. Design, generation, distribution, printing and archiving all sit in one platform, so you can retire the patchwork of reporting and document tools.
Most organisations come to Lasernet with a single request. A better invoice, perhaps. A way off Crystal Reports, or a fix for printing that keeps falling over.
Once it’s in, they tend to find the same platform answers dozens of other document problems across the business (our use case library has plenty of examples). That’s why a lot of IFS customers end up treating Lasernet as part of their IFS strategy rather than a reporting add-on. It takes the complexity out of generating documents, clears printing bottlenecks, connects their other applications and makes sure every document looks the way it should.
The quickest way to judge whether Lasernet fits your IFS setup is to watch it handle the documents you’re wrestling with right now, whether that’s an invoice finance keeps sending back or a print queue that grinds to a halt every month end. Fill in the form below to book a demo, and one of our team will walk you through it using examples that match how your business actually works.