Ask any professional automotive or aircraft technician, and you'll hear that the Snap-on® brand is synonymous with quality. The company's popular lines of hand tools, tool storage, diagnostics and other products can be found anywhere technicians work, from small automotive repair shops to the world's most advanced manufacturing facilities.
"Snap-on’s products are state-of-the-art," says Thomas Niman, director of business operations and systems integration at Snap-on Credit. "Yet when it came to setting up financing, our franchisees dealt with processes that were in need of updating. Our goal was to automate processes for accessing, completing, and submitting credit applications and contracts for customers." With Adobe LiveCycle solutions and CIC’s electronic signature software, Snap-on Credit today has a complete electronic forms workflow as innovative as the products it finances.
As a provider of financial services to Snap-on Incorporated, a leading global manufacturer and distributor of professional tools and equipment, Snap-on Credit works with the company's national network of 3,500 franchisees to provide customers with financing for product purchases.
Traditionally, franchisees input data into a stand-alone system in their vans and printed and signed the resulting forms by hand. The retail installment contract forms were then submitted to a franchisee’s regional office. The regional office forwarded—often at the expense of next-day delivery services—the contracts to Snap-on Credit's main office for processing.
"We receive thousands of contracts each week," says Niman. "Our processing costs were high and delays unavoidable." For instance, roughly 15 percent of contracts submitted on paper contained errors and had to be returned to franchisees for corrections. Usually corrections required franchisees to go back to customers and have revised contracts signed. When there were errors, it could take longer than seven business days to process contracts.
"With Adobe solutions, the time to receive and process most credit applications and contracts has gone from several days to minutes. We've also seen a dramatic drop in error rates on contracts—from 15% to fewer than 2%."
Thomas Niman
Director, Business Operations and Systems Integration
Snap-on Credit
Another problem with the manual processes was that franchisees generally waited until the end of the week to submit contracts written that week. As a result, Snap-on Credit could receive thousands of contracts in a single day—all of which had to be checked for accuracy and keyed into systems before financing could be concluded.
Recognizing the power of digital technologies to automate application and contract processing, Snap-on Credit deployed a solution tightly integrated with the franchisee’s point-of-sale system from Hatala Systems Group. The company decided to extend the capabilities of the point-of-sale system by adding an electronic signature component built around CIC’s patented Sign-it® technology, and a Topaz Systems Inc. electronic signature pad.
During meetings with CIC, Niman was told about Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions software, which would allow Snap-on to present franchisees with intelligent, dynamic forms in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) that looked exactly like paper contracts familiar to them.
"PDF forms support for electronic signatures and the ability to complete forms using free Adobe Reader software were integral to our decision to use Adobe solutions," explains Niman. "Our franchisees and customers all have their own ways of working. Adobe PDF forms help us address the needs of varied users."
In less than six months, Snap-on Credit developed and introduced the dynamic PDF contracts to franchisees. "The adoption rate was phenomenal," says Niman. "Within nine months of our first pilot franchisee implementation, more than 90 percent of all contracts were being submitted electronically." It took just six months to convert 80% of all U.S.-based franchisees to this voluntary program. Currently Snap-on has over 2,860 franchisees using the process and plans to extend this to Canada, Puerto Rico, and possibly other areas.
Franchisees simply enter information into a software application on their computers. Hatala Systems developed a mechanism to export the detail in XML into a PDF form. Electronic signatures are applied to designated form fields using the Topaz electronic signature pad and CIC’s Sign-it® software. The process conducts a series of edit checks to ensure the accuracy of the contract, and compliance with any promotional financing terms offered. Once forms are completed, franchisees can use a broadband or dial-up Internet connection to send the metadata to Snap-on Credit for processing.
Each time a franchisee or Snap-on Credit employee needs to view application or contract data, it is automatically populated in the PDF form template for viewing on screen or for reliable printing. Because the PDF forms are certified forms, everyone involved in the process is assured that the forms are published by Snap-on Credit and that they have not been altered.
The streamlined processes provide real returns to Snap-on and its franchisees. "With Adobe solutions, the time to receive and process most contracts has gone from several days to minutes," says Niman. "We've also seen a dramatic drop in error rates on contracts—from 15% to fewer than 2%." Franchisees are now able to receive their sales credit within minutes of delivering the product to the end user.
The efficient workflows enable franchisees to more regularly receive pricing discounts due to timely contract processing. It also helps reduce the possibility of holds being placed on a franchisee's stock orders because of unpaid invoices.
"We're impressed by the ease of integrating CIC and Adobe solutions into our processes," says Niman. "Already, we are looking to automate more forms processes, making it even faster and easier for franchisees to conduct ."
