For over 30 years, G.B.S., Inc. has been sourcing products specifically geared for the hardware and paint retail industries. A part of a family business that is over 100 years old, G.B.S., Inc. strives to create and maintain long-term relationships with both customers and suppliers. G.B.S., Inc.’s focus is on creating the best value for money. Their distribution programs are based on using guaranteed, high-quality products while, at the same time, making use of efficient sourcing. This combination gives G.B.S., Inc. the ability to offer their programs worldwide.
Challenge
“Before Google Workspace and AODocs, we were SharePoint users,” explained William Freud, owner at GBS Global. “We were happy with it for many years and then it sort of just stayed behind. We were looking for something that was more modern and user-friendly with more security and functionalities built into it that SharePoint couldn’t offer.”
The majority of GBS Global’s business is done internationally: they have shipping documents that range from certificate of origin and material data safety sheets to quotes, purchase orders, and invoices going back and forth across continents every day. They needed a way to keep everything organized between their Miami, Florida headquarters and their global customers.
Story
In his search for a new document management solution, William was looking for something that GBS Global would be able to structure in the way that they wanted. Advanced security and customer support were key factors in the decision-making process. After discovering AODocs and working with the team to test it alongside Google Workspace, they realized that the security features that AODocs offered were exactly what they were looking for.
“Being able to set up different levels of accessibility was an important feature but one of the greatest parts about AODocs is that once somebody creates a document and uploads it, it’s no longer owned by them individually—it becomes the company’s document,” explained William. “We’re a completely paperless office and we knew that AODocs was going to make it easy to do it our way.”
After the testing period, they were able to migrate all of their documents from SharePoint to Google Drive overnight. “We went through the migration and it was flawless,” says William.
The ability to add metadata to documents in Drive is something that has helped GBS Global maintain organization and structure in a paperless environment. “The metadata comes into play by making sure that each document ends up in the right place and, more importantly, that the person creating the document inputs the required keywords,” explained William. “We don’t allow users to upload a document unless they enter the master file number and specify the type of document it is—enforcing those rules makes it easier for everyone to find what they’re looking for.”
Results
When it came to change management and rolling out AODocs, the GBS Global team adapted quickly. “If you know your way around Google Workspace and Google Drive, AODocs is familiar,” explained William. “It was extremely quick and easy. We had little issue getting the team to adopt the technology. If you can work with SharePoint, then AODocs will seem like a piece of cake.”
AODocs has also helped GBS Global save time when it comes to creating, managing, and validating files in Drive.
“Thanks to the simplicity of operating the AODocs system, we’ve been able to eliminate two steps from the file creation and publishing process,” said William. “What used to take three minutes with SharePoint is now done in less than a minute with AODocs.”
According to William, document searchability with AODocs is where the GBS Global CFO and accounting team are able to save tremendous amounts of time.
“When searching for scanned invoices, they don’t have to search for a specific name of a document. Instead, they can type ‘purchase orders’ and get the whole list of purchase orders,” said William. “Moving from SharePoint to AODocs was like coming out of the stone age into modern times where searching for something is easy and powerful.
“One of the greatest parts about AODocs is that once somebody creates a document and uploads it, it’s no longer owned by them individually—it becomes the company’s document.”
William Freud, Owner GBS Global
Ready to get started?
