A win-win situation with Doxis

Trust is a crucial factor when it comes to financing: Investors need to be sure that their business partners comply with all of their financial obligations and demonstrate accountability. With Doxis, Raffinerie Heide has developed a secure reporting system that accomplishes all of this. The refinery fulfills their obligations before deadlines thanks to automated and fully documented processes. The company complies with all of the contractual requirements. This establishes security and creates a win-win situation for everyone involved: It is a sound investment for financial partners and Raffinerie Heide receives long-term financing.

Raffinerie Heide is the northernmost crude oil refinery in Germany. In 2017, it processed 4.5 million tons of crude oil and generated 2 billion euros. The company, an independent part of the oil unit of the Klesch Group, works with large banks to finance new projects. With annual investments in the double-digit million range and business operations that require a high amount of materials and substances traded on the stock market, Raffinerie Heide must have excellent financial capacities. Thanks to its financial partners, the company is able to ensure this — particularly in the areas of financing working capital, factoring and loans. Of course, the financing comes with strings attached:

Raffinerie Heide currently has to meet 265 conditions and demonstrate compliance to their financial partners. This also includes issuing quarterly financial statements to them. To fulfill these obligations on time and accurately, the company relies on Doxis.

Since 2013, Raffinerie Heide has been extending its ECM platform throughout the company: from an archive for technical drawings and SAP data to digital files and a wide range of digital processes.  With the Doxis project approval workflow, Raffinerie Heide is, for example, able to automatically manage project approval and implementation throughout all steps. This takes place much faster and more transparently than on paper. It also increases the quality and level of compliance in the processes. The success of this has led to a further solution: Thanks to the low-code approach of Doxis, the IT and other departments can individually design new ECM applications — without complex programming. This is a clear competitive advantage when it comes to quickly meeting business requirements. The same applies to financial accountability towards investors: Since 2018, Raffinerie Heide has been using a newly developed "obligation workflow" to demonstrate the fulfillment of its obligations to financial partners.

When an employee files a new financing contract in a finance eFile, the conditions are also saved in Doxis obligation eFiles; the obligation workflow is automatically triggered. The workflow sends a reminder to the responsible employee that a report must be issued. If the employee does not promptly confirm receiving the notification, Doxis informs a colleague. This ensures that all documentation is submitted on time. To create reports, employees simply access the connected Doxis Contract Management solution and the obligation eFiles, which means that all relevant information is directly available. Once all conditions are fulfilled for the employee's particular area, this person verifies fulfillment through the confirmation workflow. Meanwhile, Doxis is always documenting the entire process: "We now have a fully operable and secure daily reporting system that traceably archives every step," says Rainer Hass, Team Lead in Accounting at Raffinerie Heide.

Workflows make it much easier for the 60 employees from Production, Finance and Technology to fulfill reporting requirements. The automated notifications and deadline management give them the certitude that they are completing all necessary steps on time. The information that Doxis provides them also streamlines and shortens the time needed for the reporting process. Hass also sees another advantage: "Now that employees from outside of the Finance department can view contracts and their obligations, there is a lot more understanding regarding our fulfillment of conditions. They identify with the situation and are much more motivated to comply." This gives Raffinerie Heide the assurance that all conditions are demonstrably fulfilled and that their financial partners will get a return on their investment — which is an absolute must for financing.

"Now that employees from outside of the Finance department can view contracts and their obligations, there is a lot more understanding regarding our fulfillment of conditions. They identify with the situation and are much more motivated to comply."

Rainer Hass, Team Lead Accounting, Raffinerie Heide