Saving the planet by automating workflows

NQ Dry Tropics

NQ Dry Tropics is an independent, not-for-profit company delivering extension, training, and on-ground work to improve landscapes, livelihood, and communities. Formed in 2002, they work with hundreds of partners to deliver projects that are based on the best available science, protect the reef, wetlands, and biodiversity, connect traditional owners to the country, and improve farm productivity and drought resilience. The 146,000 km² Burdekin Dry Tropics region connects rangelands to the reef and covers eight percent of Queensland. They focus on the 97 percent of the land used for grazing and cropping.

Challenges faced

• Expense tracking. As the organization grew, NQ struggled to track its expenses.

• Manual processes. Employees used emails and paper to manage purchase orders, which were difficult to track.

Solution

As NQ Dry Tropics grew, it became tough to track expenditures. The finance team in the organization had to make sure that each project received and spent only what the project deserved. To keep track of expenditure, NQ brought in approval systems wherein a senior authority approved or rejected the spend depending on the necessity.

Since Purchases formed a major chunk of the expenditure, to keep a check on the spend, NQ introduced purchase requisition approval processes. Before Kissflow, the approval processes involve the exchange of multiple emails between requestors and approvers. Even though a set approval process existed, keeping track of the multitudes of e-mails and papers seeking approvals was impossible, and the whole process just fell out of place.

Doug Willis, IT Manager at NQ Dry Tropics, wanted a workflow tool to automate Purchase Requisition processes. Having adopted Google Apps for his organizational needs, he was on the lookout for a solution that seamlessly integrated with the Google Apps Suite. After evaluating a few options, the ease of setting up business processes and ability to track them effortlessly made Kissflow the preferred solution.

Results

After successfully implementing the processes to track expenditures, NQ Dry Tropics could:

• Track their expenses

• Save a lot of money by cutting down on unnecessary spends

• Eliminate time-consuming manual work

NQ Dry Tropics started off with expense tracking using Kissflow and has now automated many other internal process approvals following that.