About six months after the rollout, Coffman's team realized it could connect its homegrown .Net application, which captures the driver's signature (via an electronic gadget akin to what consumers sign for UPS), to StreamServe.

"We were able to separate the signature and the bill of lading," Coffman says. "That was the key piece." Here's how the new process works: The driver signs a document that states what the bill of lading will contain. Then RTC creates a separate document (the official bill of lading) and stores it in StreamServe. When RTC's invoicing staff generates daily billing requests, StreamServe gets queried, and the company creates the invoicing documentation and supporting information in one swoop, Coffman says.

Lesson learned: Since ERP implementations are incredibly complex, you may initially overlook a "gem" of a capability either in your ERP package or in one of your third-party applications that connect to ERP, Coffman says.

"After the implementation, go back over your original assumptions," he advises. "Sometimes, applications have hidden aptitudes."

Extending StreamServe to talk to the homegrown .Net app cracked the invoicing bottleneck problem, Coffman says. "What's impressive is how quickly it came together," he says, noting that the IT team rolled out the new system within a week.

"Stepwise, we probably cut the process by 50 percent," Coffman says, the process being the time from shipment generation (when the driver hits RTC's docks) to invoice mailing.

The experience reinforced Coffman's belief that for companies like RTC, which don't have huge IT organizations, a key requirement for an ERP package is that it wonâ¬"t present integration hassles with third-party applications.

"Our model is to select vendors that have deep support and deep consulting offerings to bring to the table," Coffman says. "We run fairly lean so we try to pick strong people to extend IT. Our job is to understand the business; the partner helps us solve the puzzle." RTC has about 500 employees, about 15 of them in IT, he says.

Combining a document processing revamp with an ERP rollout is not yet a common occurrence in enterprise IT, says China Martens, a senior analyst covering CRM and ERP software for The 451 Group. "It's one I'd keep an eye on," she says. Due to the scope of an ERP makeover, many companies delay decisions regarding new third-party apps, she adds.

If you do want to revamp document handling at the same time as your ERP system, an ERP vendor's services team will be all the more important to you, she adds. "If you're getting a lot of help with the ERP system, maybe that makes it easier to do work like this on the side."