AMCS Platform - One SaaS platform. Multiple integrated software solutions.
A dynamic, scalable, enterprise-grade, cloud platform purpose-built for waste, recycling & transport companies to operate more efficiently and drive sustainability across all business processes.
Our integrated, scalable solutions support end-to-end optimization of all your operational processes to help your business grow through intelligent digital transformation. Combining industry-specific functionality, e-commerce ingenuity and on-vehicle technologies for a flexible approach to boost productivity across your organization.
With an intelligent platform that predicts and actions in real-time, ensuring companies are equipped with the tools they need to accelerate your business growth and achieving your sustainability goals.
AMCS is committed to continually building for the future, innovating and evolving our solutions and are proud to announce the AMCS Platform Summer Release, the second major release of 2023.
Our continued investment in the digital transformation of core automation processes in this Platform Summer ’23 release delivers real business value’ said Elaine Treacy, Global Product Director at AMCS. ‘’The optimized ‘order to cash’ processes will ensure our customers can get paid faster and with less effort, reducing the risk of overdue payments and bad debt. Our investment in enhanced user experiences and a new equipment inventory feature will allow our customers to drive greater utilization and financial return from their container and truck assets, and thus improve their sales. Our new streamlined ‘purchase to pay ‘will allow our recyclers to purchase feedstock in an efficient and regulatory compliant manner, and to settle with suppliers using cash and checks as well as a new range of exciting digital payment options.
We were literally stuck at the same point that we’ve been at for 15 years and our previous solution wasn’t growing with us. It was pretty much a no brainer that this is what we needed to invest in. Once our team understood the AMCS Platform eliminates some big headaches in their daily jobs, even though there’s a learning curve, everyone has been excited by the fact that we’re transforming our company and moving forward.
Driving increased productivity, efficiency, and margins for our customers.
This Summer 2023 Release demonstrates our continued commitment to digital transformation that drives increased productivity, efficiency, and margins for our customers.
What does digital transformation mean to the AMCS Group? Enabling customer-led growth by leveraging leading technologies in the AMCS Platform and its user experience.
The goal? Simplify, streamline, and automate processes to ensure our customers enjoy the highest levels of productivity, efficiency, and business performance.
The features listed below form part of our major Summer Release issued at the end of June unless there is an asterisk * with the month of a mini release scheduled for either end July or end August.
Key Themes in Summer 2023 Release:
- Orders to cash – get paid faster. Anywhere in the business there are orders to process, AMCS Platform gets you paid faster and with less effort. Faster, seamless orders-to-cash improves your cashflow and your bottom line.
- Intelligent container management. Maximize use of existing container and truck assets increase resource utilization to improve sales and ROI.
- Purchase to pay for Recyclers – Pay faster with assured compliance. Gain control, visibility, and compliance on material purchases and supplier payments. Digitizing seller identification, regulatory compliance, and payments will boost your efficiency.
Invoice Generation and Delivery Highlights:
Full Automation via the Job Scheduler – Set and Go*
Full automated timing of the batch invoice generation process through our job scheduler
Read moreFull Automation via the Job Scheduler – Set and Go*
It is now possible to full automate timing of the batch invoice generation process through our job scheduler and this removes the need for manual intervention, providing the flexibility to run these processes at any time of their choosing (e.g., out of hours), releasing financial staff to focus on higher value business activity.
This feature is allowing one Platform customer to move from a previous 20+ invoice cycles to 3 in their batch generation process. *
Reduced Invoice Generation Times – 3X Times Faster *
Save time, with flexibility and choice
Read moreReduced Invoice Generation Times – 3X Times Faster *
We continue to optimize the performance of the invoice generation processes with the time required reduced by a factor of three, compared to earlier releases. This saves valuable time, provides flexibility and choice for you and your customers.
This feature is allowing one Platform customer to move from a previous 20+ invoice cycles to 3 in their batch generation process. *
Streamlining of Processes – Streamline, simplify and automated
Our new streamlined Invoice Cycle concept provides greater flexibility in decisions on which customers to invoice within the same invoice batch process.
Read moreStreamlining of Processes – Streamline, simplify and automated
Our new streamlined Invoice Cycle concept provides greater flexibility in decisions on which customers to invoice within the same invoice batch. This feature is allowing one Platform customer to move from a previous 20+ invoice cycles to 3 in their batch generation process. *
Screen caption: Invoice Cycles streamlining, simplifying, and speeding up invoice generation
Invoice & Financial Documentation Delivery- Greater performance and auditability
The new cloud-based SMTP service in Platform has been extended to include the email delivery of credit and debit notes, reducing the burden on customer email servers
Read moreInvoice & Financial Documentation Delivery- Greater performance and auditability
The new cloud-based SMTP service in Platform has been extended to include the email delivery of credit and debit notes, thus reducing the burden on customer email servers. This will provide improved performance and auditability with ability to view when a document was sent, received, and opened by customers.
This will evolve in future releases to encompass a wider range of financial documents including statements and reminders. There are also new rules allowing the option to exclude from delivery invoices, bills, and customers with certain characteristics (e.g., zero amounts, credit balances) from invoice delivery.
Screen caption: Accounting Dashboard – Control and Insights at your fingertips
Cash Collections Management
Delinquent customers and bad debts slow cash flow, reducing payments, revenue generation and margin It is critical to have collection automation to ensure that operators have control and insights over this area to reduce the risk of delinquent payments and increase timely receipt of payments.
A new Cash Collections Management module provides higher levels of control and configurability of key credit control policies including delinquency reminder notices and procedures, including increased automation of statement and reminder generation and improved visibility over all relevant customer communications. This will deliver reduced delinquent payments and increase timely receipt of payments.
The main feature highlights provide include:
Cash Collections Management Highlights:
Configurable Credit Control Reminder Policies- Control your Credit Management
The release provides higher levels of configurability and automation of reminder note rules policy, to automatically generate reminders to remind customers of upcoming or overdue payments.
Read moreConfigurable Credit Control Reminder Policies- Control your Credit Management
The release provides higher levels of configurability and automation of reminder note rules policy to automatically generate customer reminders of upcoming or overdue payments. This can be configured by aged days category and sent selectively or in bulk.
The reminder policy can be configured at a company outlet, customer category and payment type level. It is no longer necessary to print a statement before generating notifications. This ability to configure specific credit control policies will create future automation opportunities.
Screen caption: Credit Control Reminder Policy Definition
Cash Collections Dashboard for Agents/Supervisors- Visibility and Control
This role specific dashboard provides credit agents and supervisors with the control, insights, and automation to manage all aspects of collections management.
Read moreCash Collections Dashboard for Agents/Supervisors- Visibility and Control
This role specific dashboard provides credit agents and supervisors with the control, insights, and automation to manage all aspects of collections management.
This is a powerful dashboard that shows all the relevant credit details of each customer and their outstanding invoices per aged category in a clear, intuitive, and customizable fashion. Credit agents have all the necessary information and communication tools at their fingertips to engage with delinquent customers.
It will evolve in future releases to show history of all customer communications and notes.
Screen caption: New Cash Collections Dashboard
Customer Service Status Automation – Bulk Suspension of Delinquent Customers
Automation of customer service status changes include a new bulk suspend feature to suspend service in line with credit policy for delinquent customers.
Read moreCustomer Service Status Automation – Bulk Suspension of Delinquent Customers
The first phase of the automation of customer service status changes will be a new bulk suspend feature to pause service in line with credit policy for delinquent customers. Agents can review and approve automated delinquent customer lists prior to suspension.
This will evolve in future releases to include an expanded list of automated service status changes such as closing and re-activation of service post payment confirmation.
Screen caption: Reminders Policy Set Up
New Equipment Inventory Module
This release sees the launch of a new Equipment Inventory function which delivers real-time control and insights into all dimensions of container inventory, including categorization of quantity by size and type, location, service activity and availability for sale.
It ensures operators are maximizing their financial return from their container investment, increasing service utilization, sales revenue and preventing loss of containers and unnecessary asset spend.
The new Equipment Inventory module builds on the strong foundational functionality in this area to provide operators with the ability to track and manage their investment and use of all their container assets.
Equipment Inventory Highlights
Serialized Inventory, Non-Serialized or Both Modes? – The Choice is Yours
The new automation allows for the management of inventory in either serialized, non-serialized or in both modes.
Read moreSerialized Inventory, Non-Serialized or Both Modes? – The Choice is Yours
Non-serial mode will provide the quantity of container types by location (e.g., operator yard, customer location etc.) whereas serial mode allows tracking of each individual container asset by serial number of tags to allow viewing of GPS (Global Positioning System) location, activity & service history etc.
This choice and flexibility allow an operator to decide the preferred mode based on asset cost, frequency of container movement between customer site and own yard and staff overhead.
For example, an operator may choose to operate in non-serial mode for low-cost carts while using serial mode for high-cost and high activity containers such as Roll-Offs. The operator also has choice in which types of serial tagging to employ such as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags, serial numbers, barcodes and QR codes.
Screen caption: Serial Container Asset Record
Inventory Equipment Dashboard – Visibility, Control, and Insights
There is a role-based dashboard designed to provide the yard container manager with a real-time picture of every dimension of your container inventory
Read moreInventory Equipment Dashboard – Visibility, Control, and Insights
There is a role-based dashboard designed to provide the yard container manager with a real-time picture of every dimension of your container inventory including:
- Count and availability of containers by type/size across your yards.
- Location of containers by operator yard (with precise location), repair yard location and customer location
- Count of containers by type/size at each individual customer site
- Status of containers – available or unavailable (e.g., requiring repair, washing etc.)
- Availability of containers for hire today.
- For serialized mode, the history of the serial activity on each individual container is available
The dashboard is easy to use, allowing the easy and rapid sorting and filtering of thousands of container records to allow the search for specific containers.
This real-time picture means that you can manage your inventory more easily, where you can improve the utilization of low earning containers and you can take an informed decision prior to spending on new containers or repairs. It can also prevent leakage of containers as customers and staff will know that individual containers with serials can be tracked.
Screen caption: Equipment Inventory Dashboard
Driver Mobile Support – Minimizing driver input effort and errors
The AMCS Mobile application minimizes any burden for drivers when moving containers in/out of yard stock by reducing keystrokes to select/confirm the serial of the container by simply scanning a code to ensure that your inventory of containers is always up to date.
Read moreDriver Mobile Support – Minimizing driver input effort and errors
The AMCS Mobile application minimizes any burden for drivers when moving containers in/out of yard stock by reducing keystrokes to select/confirm the serial of the container or in the future by simply scanning a code to ensure that your inventory of containers is always up to date.
There is also a Container Exception Management Tool to identify and quickly resolve any serial data anomalies such as duplicates and incorrect serial numbers, New container data can be readily uploaded to Platform or downloaded for analysis.
Screen caption: Container Exception Management and Resolution Tool
Leverage new and enhanced inventory related functionality of the AMCS Platform
The new Equipment Inventory module is complemented by a range of new or enhanced features designed to boost the financial return form container investment.
Read moreLeverage new and enhanced inventory related functionality of the AMCS Platform
The new Equipment Inventory module is complemented by a range of new/enhanced features designed to boost the financial return form container investment.
- Enhanced Idle Container dashboard allowing the identification of slow-moving containers
- Improved automation of container inactivity rental charges to bill for a rent after a no fee grace period
- Support for Clustered Containers for the Dutch Municipal model, providing controlled pass-based access to containers shared by residents.
Screen caption: Idle Container Analysis to identify slow moving containers
Improved User Experience and Productivity across Transport Solutions
Boosting the Productivity of the Transport Planner for both Round and Roll-Off schedules
A new planning view called the Unassigned Job Manager has been introduced and it provides a full-size grid to allow the planner a more complete view of all the jobs which can be grouped by material and container type with extensive sorting and filtering features to optimize planning and scheduling.
Read moreBoosting the Productivity of the Transport Planner for both Round and Roll-Off schedules
A new planning view called the Unassigned Job Manager has been introduced and it provides a full-size grid to allow the planner a more complete view of all the jobs which can be grouped by material and container type with extensive sorting and filtering features to optimize planning and scheduling. In addition, the planner can now more readily view details in grids such as drivers notes, customers sites and disposal sites.
A new Route Allocation Dialogue feature automates the adding of jobs to routes, showing only compatible routes and providing the closest stop on a route, thus making it easier to select the best route and sequence for a job.
New Multi-Shift Scheduling allows for rostering a vehicle and drivers across multiple team boards on the same day, making it easier to adding drivers for Roll-Off work.
AMCS Vision AI – Full Integration into Platform and two new dashboards
Two new highly intuitive dashboards provide a summary overview of both contamination and overfill events, and these viewed can be filter to a more granular levels to view such exceptions by vehicle type, vehicle registration and material type.
Read moreAMCS Vision AI – Full Integration into Platform and two new dashboards
Two new highly intuitive dashboards provide a summary overview of both contamination and overfill events, which can be filtered further to show exceptions by vehicle type, vehicle registration and material type. This provides detailed insights, control, and decision support for follow up actions such as charging and customer behaviour education.
AMCS Fleet Maintenance – Refreshed UI to Modernize and Align with AMCS Platform
AMCS Fleet Maintenance will have a new User Interface (UI) with a mini release in July 2023. The new UI delivers a more modern, intuitive user experience. Equally important, these exciting changes deliver an interface more consistent with AMCS Platform.
Read moreAMCS Fleet Maintenance – Refreshed UI to Modernize and Align with AMCS Platform
AMCS Fleet Maintenance will have a new UI with a mini release in July 2023. The new UI delivers a more modern, intuitive user experience. Equally important, these exciting changes deliver an interface more consistent with AMCS Platform. Users will now have alignment in menus, navigation, etc. when working in both Platform ERP and Fleet Maintenance.
Screen caption: Workshop Supervisor Workspace
Screen caption: Multiple Stacked Cards
Screen caption: Parts List Card
Digitalization of the Purchase to Pay cycle for recyclers to maximize productivity and efficiency
In this release, we are continuing our digital transformation of the Purchase to Pay process for recyclers with a focus on key steps including seller authentication, compliance, and disbursement payments. We are providing recyclers with an opportunity to pay with conventional instruments such as cash, cash at EZCash ATM, check and ACH (Automatic Clearing House) based payments.
In addition, integration to AMCS Pay will add new real-time digital payment channels including paying to debit card, pre-paid credit cards and a variety of digital wallets. These emerging technologies provide lower cost and higher efficiency alternatives to cash and manual payments.
New Feature Highlights
- Seamless workflows between the scale and financial invoicing and payment processes to ensure fast and auditable processing of all material purchases, reducing delays, data entry errors and eliminating the need for any manual processes.
- Connections to a variety of third-party devices including scale indicators, cameras, ID scanners, signature pads and payment terminals. A new connector to the E-Seek ID scanner is now available. This real-time image and transaction capture ensures compliance with state/federal compliance regulations and reduces date entry effort and the risk of errors.
- Disbursement payments are now embedded in the cash office workflow processes through our AMCS Pay solution. This provides support for conventional cash, check, and ACH payments for both immediate payments for cash customers as well as for account trade payable customers who are paid as part of a payable cycle.
- AMCS Pay will also allow payment via emerging real time digital channels including:
- Pay to seller debit card
- Load to physical pre-paid credit cards
- A new feature allows the cash office agent to modify the scale ticket before billing to reflect any exceptions such as quantity or material mismatches, with such changes being fully auditable
- The Real-Time Inventory Management module which offered a weighted moving average cost valuation by accounting period has been extended to a fixed weighted average cost of goods calculation on shipment.