02.13.2026

Streamlining Financial Workflows with Accounts Payable Automation Behind every public service is a financial engine that has to run flawlessly. Every day, this large government agency touches the lives of millions, delivering vital services across health care, education, infrastructure, and beyond. With such a vast scope, efficient financial systems are critical for ensuring timely payments to all employees, vendors, and ministries. In the wake of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system rollout, this government agency had an opportunity to make new inroads into more streamlined processes. The Challenge: Navigating a New ERP and Complex Business Rules When the agency launched SAP—an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system known for its robust capabilities—they knew it would require thoughtful change management. With such a significant shift, the team was unsure how their accounts payable process would perform. “SAP is incredibly powerful,” says Mark Ellis, Senior Manager of Technology Services at WCD. “It touches every part of an organization, and when you implement a system like this, it often brings to light opportunities to reassess and improve existing processes.” But here’s the real challenge the agency faced: not only did cheques and financial documents need to have the correct contact and amount information applied before being sent to print or distribution, they also had thousands of unique business rules to manage the process. These rules included everything from ensuring the cheques displayed the right department logo to complying with stringent regulations—all of which needed to be done by transforming raw data into a tangible, automated output. And of course, the stakes were high, because financial documents need to be accurate, timely, and secure—no exceptions. “The agency had one employee fielding all requests,” Ellis recalls. “She was completely overwhelmed.” They needed a partner who could handle the complexity, streamline the process, and deliver results with transparency and agility. After responding to a public tender through an RFP process, WCD was awarded the contract. The Solution: Automating Data Transformation with Custom Code When WCD stepped in, they did what they do best: listened. “Our first step was to deep dive into the requirements—hundreds of pages of documentation outlining their needs,” Ellis explains. “We studied their processes carefully before identifying a path forward.” WCD’s innovative approach was led by their in-house development team. Drawing on deep technical expertise, the team custom-coded a solution that streamlined the flow of data from multiple systems, transforming it into actionable outputs. “Our developers didn’t just configure out-of-the-box tools—they built a system from the ground up,” Ellis says. “We designed a process that could take raw data, apply thousands of business rules, and generate everything from cheques to remittance statements, T4s, and employee pay slips, all tailored to unique requirements.” The team began by identifying which existing tools would meet their needs and where gaps with those tools required custom code. After coding and integrating the solution, they implemented rigorous quality control, including debugging and user acceptance testing with the team. A key step was the “parallel production” phase, where WCD ran the same data through their previous process and compared outputs side by side. “This let us catch any discrepancies and confirm our solution was ready for production,” Ellis notes. To manage the thousands of documents created each day, WCD also introduced a game-changer for the agency: a live dashboard. “This wasn’t just a tool for us to monitor processes internally,” Ellis says. “It became a real-time intelligence hub. We could track the status of every file, handle emergency cheque runs in minutes, and ensure everything was on time and accurate.” Once validated, the system went live, supported by WCD for ongoing maintenance and enhancements. This system not only ensured compliance with complex rules but also streamlined their entire workflow, enabling faster processing and distribution of both physical documents via Canada Post and digital documents via email. WCD also worked with them to establish processes that reduce paper usage by steering more vendors toward electronic statements—enhancing sustainability and efficiency while reducing print spend. The Impact: Collaboration That Delivers Results The impact of WCD’s work was immediate. Service-level agreements were met, meaning people got paid accurately and on time. Emergency cheques that required processing in under two hours were now ready in just 10 minutes. Today, their financial systems are running smoother than ever. WCD’s solution didn’t just improve efficiency—it created a partnership built on trust and collaboration. “They were looking for a partner who could provide flexibility and responsiveness to their needs. We showed them that we could handle their data with precision, compliance, and care.” While the measurable improvements are still being documented, they now have an accounts payable process and reliable partner that’s more agile and customer-focused, helping them meet the needs of millions of citizens and local businesses each year. Ready to Modernize Your Financial Workflows? If manual processes, complex business rules, or ERP transitions are slowing your team down, WCD can help. Explore our Accounts Payable Automation solutions to see how we transform raw data into accurate, compliant, and scalable outputs.

02.13.2026

In Canada, labour shortages, AI, and rising costs are pushing enterprise organizations to rethink their operational model. In a typical year, back-office functions inside enterprise organizations simply chug along, business as usual. Just steady, behind-the-scenes work that keeps the business moving. These are the administrative parts of an org often labelled “cost centres”—they don’t generate revenue, but they keep everything moving. Certainly not glamorous, but absolutely essential. And because they’ve reliably done their job in the background, most business leaders have rarely paused to ask whether there might be a smarter, more efficient way to run them. But 2026 is far from typical. Hiring is harder, operational costs are higher, compliance expectations are tighter, and internal teams are stretched thin. Leaders are being asked to modernize, cut overhead, and move faster, all at once. So more organizations are stepping back and asking a smarter question: “are we setting our people up to focus on the work that truly moves the organization forward, or are they tied up managing infrastructure that could be run more efficiently another way?” That shift in thinking is what’s driving the rise in back-office outsourcing, especially in high-friction areas like print, mail, and records management. The Pressure on Canadian Businesses in 2026 If you talk to operations leaders right now, you’ll hear a common theme: everything feels heavier. Here’s what’s happening in the global and Canadian business landscape that has them feeling the pinch. 1. Labour Is Tight, And Getting Tighter Canada’s workforce is aging fast. In the 1970s, there were eight working-age Canadians for every person over 65. Today, that ratio is closer to three. Even with strong population growth, many organizations are struggling to fill operational roles, and 29% report open positions they simply can’t fill. Wage pressure follows, and even businesses that aren’t directly short-staffed are feeling the cost ripple effects. When it’s this hard to hire and retain, rethinking how certain functions are delivered starts to make practical sense. 2. Cost Control Is Back on the Table In a recent Globe and Mail workforce survey, 69% of companies planning to reduce staff cited cost reduction as the primary reason. At the same time, 71% say they are willing to use contingent or contract workers to meet business needs. So business models are shifting. Organizations aren’t just cutting—they’re consolidating and restructuring how work gets done. Back-office outsourcing fits naturally into that conversation because it turns fixed overhead into a more flexible, predictable cost. 3. AI Is Changing the Operating Model It’s no surprise that automation and AI are actively shaping workforce decisions. Among companies planning to reduce staff, 23% say increased use of automation and AI is a factor, and 21% plan not to replace employees who leave. Larger organizations are already deploying AI to streamline administrative and analytical work, and outsourcing partners are increasingly integrating intelligent automation directly into service delivery. In fact, companies whose outsourcing partners are using AI to deliver services report higher satisfaction levels than those who don’t. To be clear, the shift here isn’t about replacing people, but about redesigning the way we work overall. 4. Compliance Isn’t Getting Simpler Data sovereignty, privacy reform, AI regulation, and the list goes on—the regulatory environment in Canada is evolving quickly. Proposed federal privacy legislation could introduce fines of up to $25 million or 5% of global revenue, and provinces are also reviewing and modernizing their privacy laws. For the Canadian enterprise, expectations around data handling, retention, and digital security are rising. As a business, all of these functions exist in areas where data and information come into the business, move through it, and exit it—such as mail, records, and print.This adds another layer of responsibility and risk that requires dedicated oversight from professionals who know the laws and how to work within them. 5. Expectations from Outsourcing Partners Are Shifting Deloitte’s Global Outsourcing Survey shows that 40% of organizations plan to increase their investment in third-party outsourcing, while only 20% expect to reduce it. More importantly, outsourcing is evolving beyond basic staff augmentation. 67% of executives now prefer outcome-based models that focus on results rather than headcount. In other words, organizations aren’t just looking to “hand off” tasks. They’re looking for partners who can modernize processes, integrate automation, and deliver measurable improvements. Why Organizations Are Choosing to Outsource Back-Office Operations First, let’s be clear: outsourcing back-office operations isn’t about cutting corners or shipping jobs off somewhere mysterious. It’s about running certain functions in a smarter way, with more structure, better tools, and clearer accountability than most internal teams realistically have time to build. Here’s why the shift makes sense. 1. Predictable Costs (No More Surprise Fire Drills) Internal back-office staffing often comes with hidden variability: sick days, turnover, overtime, equipment breakdowns, IT headaches. What looks stable on paper can feel anything but stable in practice. Outsourcing back-office staffing turns that unpredictability into a structured, agreed-upon service model. 2. Access to Specialized Talent (Without the Recruiting Marathon) Print management, mailrooms, records handling—these are niche operational disciplines. Finding people who deeply understand them (and want to build a career in them) isn’t always easy. Outsourcing back-office operations gives organizations access to teams who do this work every day with established best practices already in place. Plus, they integrate themselves into your organization. Many of our back-office outsourcing clients at WCD have our staff on-site, at their offices, every single day. 3. Flexibility When Things Change Organizations don’t operate in straight lines. Mergers happen, seasonal spikes shift needs, and employees come and go. When these functions are built entirely around internal staffing, scaling up or down can be slow and expensive. With a back-office outsourcing model, capacity can flex more easily to match real-world demand. Because the only thing predictable about 2026 is that something unexpected will happen! 4. Better Use of Internal Talent This is the big one, and it’s where the mindset shift really happens. Most organizations don’t want to eliminate roles, but they do want their people focused on higher-value work. When internal teams are freed from managing printers, sorting inbound mail, or manually retrieving archived files (for example), they can spend more time on analysis, strategy, customer experience, and innovation. Outsourcing back-office staffing ultimately removes friction from your team’s day. 5. Built-In Modernization Sure, outsourcing partners provide skilled talent—but they also integrate automation, AI-enabled workflows, reporting dashboards, leading technology, and compliance controls directly into service delivery. And they’re experts at it. They don’t have to spend time and resources figuring out the best way to do things, because they’ve already designed, tested, and scaled those processes elsewhere. In other words, you get skilled talent, lived experience, and process improvement baked in one. How to Get Started (Without Turning Everything Upside Down) You don’t need a massive overhaul to begin. Most organizations start with one area that’s already causing friction. Those areas might include: The mail room — where physical documents or shared digital inboxes are still being manually sorted, delayed, or routed in ways that slow down finance, HR, or compliance workflows.The print centre — where device sprawl, unmanaged vendors, and reactive troubleshooting quietly drive up costs and drain IT resources.The file room — where legacy paper, unclear retention rules, and slow retrieval processes create compliance risk and operational drag.The front desk — where visitor management, package intake, and administrative coordination pull skilled staff into repetitive operational tasks. Audit what’s happening today, identify where time and money are being lost, and pilot a managed model in that single function. Then, measure the results. When turnaround times improve, costs become predictable, and internal teams feel the relief, expansion becomes a practical next step. Back-office outsourcing works best as a phased evolution, tightening the infrastructure behind the scenes so your people can focus on the work that truly moves the organization forward. Ready to Rethink How Your Back Office Runs? In 2026, the organizations gaining ground aren’t necessarily doing more, but they are running smarter. They’re consolidating operational functions, modernizing processes, and giving their teams the freedom to focus on higher-value work instead of managing infrastructure. If you’re curious what that could look like across your operations, explore our back-office staffing solutions. We’ll help you identify where the friction is, and show you how to quietly, confidently fix it.

01.23.2026

Unmanaged enterprise print is a hidden OpEx drain. Here's how managed print services restore control and financial visibility. Most organizations don’t think about print until it becomes a problem—like a broken printer just before the board meeting, a last-minute brochure request from Sales, or a sensitive document that accidentally ended up in the wrong hands (yikes!). That’s because print lives in an uncomfortable middle ground. It’s mission-critical enough that failures are visible and disruptive, but rarely strategic enough to earn proper ownership. As a result, it becomes fragmented across vendors, departments, and legacy processes. Marketing owns some of it, admin owns some of it, and IT fixes things when they break. But no one is truly accountable for how the whole system runs. On paper, this looks manageable. In reality, it creates operational drag. This is exactly why more enterprise organizations are rethinking how they manage print and turning to Managed Print Services—both as a cost-control exercise and as an operational strategy. Because print isn’t just a collection of machines, vendors, and ad-hoc workflows. It’s a business-critical system that needs ownership, governance, and accountability. In this article, we’ll break down what print management really means, why most organizations are doing it the hard way, and what changes when print is treated like the operational system it actually is. What are managed print services? Managed Print Services is a centralized operating model for how an organization runs print and signage across the business. Instead of print being handled reactively by multiple teams and vendors, it is owned and managed as a single, end-to-end operation with clear accountability, defined standards, and measurable performance. In a managed print environment, a single partner is responsible for how print runs day to day, how it scales as demand grows, and how it improves over time. That includes vendor coordination, workflows, service levels, cost control, security, and reporting. The goal is to make print predictable, reliable, and professionally managed, so it no longer competes for internal time and attention. In practice, Managed Print Services typically looks like this: One accountable owner for the entire print environment: A single partner is responsible for performance, quality, timelines, and outcomes across all print and signage activity.Centralized vendor management and fulfillment: Vendors are coordinated through one operating model with defined service levels, pricing structures, and performance oversight.Standardized workflows and governance: Print requests, approvals, production, and delivery follow documented, repeatable processes instead of ad-hoc coordination.Web-to-print ordering and approvals: Staff can order brand-approved materials through a centralized platform with built-in templates, approvals, and tracking.Cost control and spend visibility: Print usage and spend are tracked in real time, enabling better budgeting, waste reduction, and ongoing optimization.Security and compliance controls: Sensitive documents are handled through formal, auditable processes designed for regulated and high-risk environments.Onsite print centre management (where applicable): Dedicated print teams, equipment oversight, and service-level management embedded directly into the organization. At its simplest, Managed Print Services turns print into a managed operation instead of a daily distraction. If you’re wondering: is all this really necessary? Well, let’s take a look at the alternative approach to managing print in an enterprise environment. The challenge with unmanaged print in an enterprise Ask most organizations what “print management” looks like, and you’ll usually hear some version of this: “We have a few preferred vendors.”“We’ve got an in-house printer room.”“Marketing handles brochures and signage.”“Admin takes care of business cards and forms.”“IT looks after the printers when they break.” On the surface, this feels reasonable, because it’s the way things have always been done. But in this reactive model, print evolves organically, leading to a set of predictable outcomes: Vendors accumulate over time New suppliers get added to solve one-off needs, rush jobs, or specialty requests. Over time, this creates a fragmented vendor ecosystem with inconsistent pricing, variable quality, overlapping capabilities, and no single view of total print spend. Responsibilities blur across teams Marketing owns some materials, while admin handles forms and business cards. Facilities looks after equipment, while IT fixes breakdowns and procurement negotiates contracts. With no clear operating model, accountability becomes shared… and shared accountability usually means no accountability. Processes grow around individual knowledge instead of documented standards Print workflows often live in people’s heads. Someone knows which vendor to call, while someone else knows how to format a job. But when they’re away or leave the organization, the process breaks. What should be a repeatable operation becomes dependent on invisible knowledge. Decisions are made tactically just to keep work moving Under pressure, teams prioritize speed over structure. That means jobs get rushed, vendors are selected based on availability instead of fit, and short-term fixes replace long-term planning. The goal becomes getting through today’s request, not building a better system. Equipment failures create operational bottlenecks Printers and finishing equipment are often mission-critical, yet poorly governed. When something goes down, there’s no formal escalation path, no service-level accountability, and no continuity plan. When that happens, production slows and deadlines slip. As organizations grow, this reactive model becomes even harder to sustain. Volume increases, service expectations rise, and complexity multiplies across departments, vendors, and locations. Print begins competing for leadership attention instead of operating quietly in the background, and internal teams spend more time coordinating, troubleshooting, and firefighting than they should. Eventually, most organizations realize they don’t actually have a print strategy at all. They simply have a printer room, a long vendor list, and a system that only works because people are working around it. But here’s the good news: there is a better way. What changes when print is properly managed When print is treated like an operational system instead of a side project, the shift is immediate and measurable. Instead of reacting to requests, teams operate within a structured, predictable environment. And instead of chasing vendors, workflows, and approvals, they rely on a centralized model that is designed to scale. For leadership, this means print stops competing for attention. It runs quietly in the background with the same discipline as other critical functions like IT, facilities, or finance. Performance is measured, issues are escalated through formal channels, and service levels are defined and enforced. For operations teams, it means fewer fire drills. No more last-minute vendor scrambles, equipment failures without backup plans, or job queues that grind productivity to a halt. Print becomes reliable and repeatable, even during peak periods. For finance and procurement, it means real visibility into spend. Print usage is tracked, costs are consolidated, and pricing is negotiated at scale. Even better: waste drastically reduces. For the CFO, this means print budgets become predictable instead of reactive. For marketing and communications, it means brand consistency at scale. When print is managed centrally and equipped with the right tools—like a web-to-print platform—brand templates are controlled, files are kept up to date, and print ordering is centralized. Every printed piece that goes into the field reflects the brand as it should. And for IT and compliance teams, it means sensitive documents are handled through formal, auditable processes designed for security, privacy, and regulatory environments. And the big bonus? IT spends less time troubleshooting printer paper jams and more time on strategic initiatives. Managed Print Services is an operating model, not a vendor relationship It might be easy to assume that Managed Print Services means outsourcing to a few print vendors or installing better printers. In reality, it’s about adopting a new operating model for how print runs across the enterprise. True Managed Print Services brings: Central ownershipDefined governanceOperational disciplinePerformance accountabilityContinuous optimization Instead of coordinating print, a managed print partner—like WCD—owns it all. They are responsible for how print runs day to day, how it scales as demand grows, and how it evolves as the organization changes. They manage vendors, workflows, service levels, equipment, security, reporting, and cost control through a single operating framework. This is what turns print from a collection of transactions into a professionally run operation. Need a managed print partner? More enterprise organizations are moving away from fragmented, reactive print environments and toward Managed Print Services as a long-term operational strategy. They are recognizing that print deserves the same level of structure, ownership, and accountability as any other critical business function. That’s exactly where WCD comes in. We run print as a managed operation—end to end. From onsite print centre management and vendor coordination to web-to-print platforms, security, and performance oversight, we assume full ownership of your print environment so it becomes predictable, scalable, and professionally run.