Case Studies
J&B Software Customer Focus: CN
The Largest Rail Network in Canada
CN operates the largest rail network in Canada and the only transcontinental network in North America. More than just a railroad, CN is a transportation company that offers integrated transportation services: rail, intermodal, trucking, freight forwarding, warehousing and distribution. By operating as a scheduled railway, CN can move more freight, more quickly with fewer assets, and has attained one of the best operating expense-to-revenue ratios in its industry—67.3% in the second quarter of 2009.
In 2008, as part of a company-wide ERP assessment, CN identified an opportunity for automation in its cash application operation. Its existing payment processing environment entailed handling a mix of paper and electronic remittance documentation from a myriad of sources, including EDI, lockbox, faxes, and emails. This hybrid environment made workflow management extremely difficult to optimize, thus limiting the Company’s ability to improve productivity. The company believed that it could leverage advances in imaging technology and transaction management to integrate all transactions into a single workflow, regardless of the source or format. CN pursued a solution for automated cash application that was highly configurable, easy to implement, and interoperable with a host of ERP platforms.
In this case study, we describe how J&B Software partnered with CN to implement a highly sophisticated automated cash application system tailored to CN’s business needs. Since implementation of J&B’s Cash Application (CA) Suite, CN has virtually eliminated paper from its cash application workflow, accelerated cash posting, and reduced manual processing. We also detail the significant, measurable operational improvements CN has achieved as a result of the CA Suite implementation.