Arizona Pipeline builds infrastructure for faster, more efficient document workflows with Adobe Acrobat Pro

As a leader in constructing infrastructure and pipelines for underground utilities, Arizona Pipeline Company makes it possible for people across Arizona, California, and Nevada to live and work in clean, safe, and hygienic environments.

Donning hard hats or working on computers, teams across Arizona Pipeline Company provide key technical and field support to major gas, electric, and telecom companies completing mega utility projects. To keep these deadline-driven projects running smoothly, team members have to manage a lot of paperwork for billing, invoicing, staffing, field measurements, and other activities.

Turning to digital

The Accounts Receivable department processes a large volume of documents manually that can be labor — and paper-intensive. Traditionally, that meant team members had to print, edit, scan, and then re-scan hard copies of forms — while printing and stapling accompanying materials to documents before storing them. Given the inefficiencies, Arizona Pipeline wanted to explore faster, more cost-effective document workflows.

Looking to streamline processes across divisions, the company’s new CFO championed going paperless. Fortunately, he had a valuable ally.

After working as a graphic designer for several years, DeAnn Burnett saw how Adobe Acrobat Pro made it faster and easier to create, combine, edit, and submit documents. When she joined Arizona Pipeline in Accounts Receivable, becoming a staff accountant, she knew the software could enhance productivity while reducing the company’s paper use.

“Supporting big, high-priority projects for local and state governments requires us to find smarter, flexible ways of working,” says Burnett. “Past experiences made me confident that Adobe could help us evolve from paper forms to smoother digital experiences.”

Laying a foundation for paperless workflows

With the support of company leadership, Burnett led the effort to encourage colleagues to adopt Acrobat Pro enterprise wide.

Starting with her teammates in Accounts Receivable, Burnett modeled the efficiency and accessibility of using the software to combine forms into one master document without leaving her desk. For instance, when dealing with payments made by checks, a team member can drag copies of actual checks to relevant forms and attach everything in a single report to store digitally.

At the same time, managers can also edit and add text, such as general ledger numbers that help track financial transactions for reporting, directly into a document. They no longer have to spend time printing forms, writing the general ledger codes in the right places, and rescanning those forms back into the computer. The digital solution has also helped them eliminate the risk of hand-written general ledger codes being considered illegible and team members needing to return the document to the source for clarification.

The result is that the team gains greater control over every aspect of document creation and workflows, from developing fillable PDFs to altering text with preferred fonts, sizes, and alignments.

“As team members experience the ease of working digitally, our Accounts Receivable department has gone nearly 100 percent paperless,” says Burnett. “That provides our customers, including major gas, electric, and communications companies with more accuracy, transparency, and security with every financial document we handle.”

Enabling teams to work more efficiently

Burnett became the company’s go-to expert to help digitize document workflows. As departments across Arizona Pipeline wanted to improve productivity, accessibility, and security by going paperless, she began researching capabilities within the software.

Burnett turned her research into a series of lunch and learn events. Working with Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable teams, she showed them how to add general ledger codes directly into a text, perform general editing functions, and process standard forms like ACH payments with e-signatures. She also taught AP how to replace paper invoices with digital images. Now, field employees can take scans from their phones and submit them to AP for payment processing.

Connecting with HR, she showed how redaction capabilities make it easy to remove confidential information, such as drivers’ licenses, social security numbers, or phone numbers from documents. HR is looking to digitize applications, moving from paper-bound processes to a more streamlined and — with Burnett’s skills in Adobe Creative Cloud — visually attractive applicant experience via interactive webforms.

“Even employees who have become accustomed to traditional processes are excited about the possibilities of going fully digital,” says Burnett. “The depth and range of tasks we can complete with Acrobat Pro has helped us achieve a 70 percent paperless rate company wide. As we’ve saved printing costs for nearly 100 pages a day, as well as time spent on repetitive tasks, we’ve developed best practices for productivity.”

Smoother, faster collaboration

With roughly 85 percent of Arizona Pipeline team members active in the field, the company needed greater accessibility for employees who spend their workdays out of the office.

Previously, foremen on job sites needed to manually note measurements and keep track of other photos or documents essential to billing. Now, thanks to the interoperability between applications, foremen can collaborate effortlessly with their counterparts in billing and other groups. Automated processes are integrated with other commonly used applications, so teams can convert Microsoft Excel spreadsheets into fillable PDFs for easy access and completion through SAP. To ensure more precise invoicing, foremen can also scan and attach additional pictures, plans, or documentation.

As teams throughout the company see the value of digital collaboration, they’ve started turning forms into signable documents that can be reviewed, signed, and submitted in a single, traceable workflow.

“The accessibility of Acrobat Pro allows team members to collaborate from anywhere, at any time, which is crucial to meeting deadlines on multiple, often concurrent projects,” says Burnett.

Giving every employee the tools to succeed

Today, the company is looking to further standardize document-based processes and workflows. Burnett is supporting the goals by continuing to educate her colleagues about the impact Acrobat Pro can have on their business. She’s experienced firsthand how digital workflows make her own work easier.

“No matter where someone works in our company, Adobe software can help them be more productive,” says Burnett. “Once someone sees all that they can achieve, they’ll love how much more effective they can be.”