By smrtr Solutions
You’ve invested in Syspro. You’ve spent time configuring it, training your team, and building your operations around it. It handles your inventory, your financials, your production — the core of how your business runs.
And yet, somewhere alongside that powerful ERP, paper keeps showing up.
The invoice that arrives by email, gets printed, and gets manually keyed in. The supplier certificate that lives in someone’s inbox because that’s how it’s always been done. The delivery confirmation that never makes it back into the system. The audit that turns into a week-long scramble to find documents everyone assumed were filed somewhere.
This isn’t a Syspro problem. Syspro is doing exactly what it was designed to do. The problem is the gap between your ERP and your documents — and for most businesses, that gap is bigger than they realize.
The good news? It’s entirely solvable. Here’s how.
What Is the Document Gap?
The document gap is the space between the data in your ERP and the documents that should be connected to it. It exists everywhere paper lives outside your system:
- Invoices and purchase orders sitting in email inboxes
- Supplier certificates saved in shared drives or personal folders
- Delivery confirmations captured on clipboards and never digitized
- Compliance documents stored in filing cabinets with no connection to the transaction they relate to
When your documents aren’t connected to your data, your ERP is making decisions — and so are your people — with incomplete information. Approvals stall. Audits become emergencies. Compliance gaps go undetected until the worst possible moment.
“We didn’t realize how exposed we were until we started mapping out what documentation we were actually collecting from suppliers — and what we weren’t. Once we saw it, we couldn’t unsee it.” — smrtr Customer, Umbrella Conference 2026
Closing the document gap means connecting every document to the transaction, supplier, or workflow it belongs to — inside Syspro, where decisions are actually made.
The Four Areas Where Paper Hides in a Syspro Environment
Most businesses don’t have one paper problem. They have four. Here’s where to look — and what Paperless ERP looks like in each area.
1. Accounts Payable: The Invoice Black Hole
Accounts payable is where the document gap is most expensive. Manual invoice processing is slow, error-prone, and creates a visibility problem that ripples through your entire financials.
The paper symptoms:
- Invoices emailed, then printed and manually keyed into Syspro
- No consistent 2-way or 3-way PO matching process
- Approval chains that live in someone’s head (or email)
- No audit trail for who approved what and when
- Month-end close that takes longer than it should because invoices are missing
What Paperless AP looks like with smrtr:
smrtr AP Automation connects directly to Syspro and handles the full invoice lifecycle — from capture to approval to payment. Invoices are automatically matched to purchase orders (2-way or 3-way), routed for approval based on your rules, and posted to Syspro without anyone touching a piece of paper.
Key capabilities include:
- Automated 2 and 3-way PO matching
- Multi-company and multi-currency support
- Custom approval routing by dollar threshold, department, or vendor
- Intelligent data translation and rules engine
- Full audit trail inside Syspro
“The matching piece alone saved us hours every week. We went from manually checking every invoice against a PO to having it done automatically before anyone even opens the document.” — smrtr Customer
2. Document Management: The Retrieval Problem
Ask your team how long it takes to find a specific document when someone needs it urgently. If the answer is anything other than “seconds,” you have a document management problem.
The paper symptoms:
- Documents stored across email, shared drives, and physical filing cabinets with no consistent logic
- No ability to pull up documents directly inside Syspro
- Toggling between multiple systems to find what you need
- Documents lost when employees leave or change roles
- Audit prep that requires pulling files from multiple locations manually
What Paperless Document Management looks like with smrtr:
smrtr Document Management captures, organizes, and surfaces every document — directly inside Syspro through native Hyperlinks via DDX (Document Distribution and Exchange). Every document is electronically stapled to the Syspro record it belongs to. No toggling. No searching. No calling Karen.
Key capabilities include:
- Capture from any source — email, scan, upload, or system-generated
- Electronic stapling to Syspro transactions, customers, suppliers, and items
- Workflow automation for document routing and approvals
- Cloud or on-premise deployment
- Role-based access and full version history
“We’re not toggling between five different systems anymore. Everything we need is right there inside Syspro. It sounds simple, but it changes everything about how your day feels.” — smrtr Customer, Umbrella Conference 2026
3. Supplier Compliance: The Invisible Risk
Supplier compliance is the document gap that doesn’t announce itself — until audit day, when it announces itself loudly.
Most businesses know they’re supposed to collect certificates, insurance documents, and compliance records from their suppliers. Far fewer know exactly which documents they’re missing, for which suppliers, for which facilities or products. That uncertainty is the risk.
The paper symptoms:
- No centralized system for tracking what documentation each supplier is required to provide
- Spreadsheets used to track compliance status (which are always out of date)
- No automated alerts when certificates expire
- FDA or regulatory audits that require manual document gathering
- New suppliers onboarded without a systematic documentation process
What Paperless Supplier Compliance looks like with smrtr:
smrtr TRAC creates a systematic, trackable process for every document requirement — mapped across suppliers, facilities, product items, and individual transactions. You always know exactly what you have, what you’re missing, and what’s about to expire.
Key capabilities include:
- Configurable documentation requirements by supplier, facility, and product
- Automated onboarding workflows with supplier self-service document upload
- Real-time compliance dashboard inside Syspro
- Certificate expiry tracking and automated renewal alerts
- Built-in FDA compliance documentation support
“Supplier compliance was the one area we kept putting off because it felt overwhelming. smrtr made it systematic. Now it’s just part of how we onboard every new supplier — it’s not a project anymore, it’s a process.” — smrtr Customer
4. ePOD & Mobile Forms: The Last Paper in Your Business
Your finance team went paperless years ago. Your AP is automated. Your documents are connected to Syspro.
And then your delivery driver leaves with a clipboard.
The point of delivery is where paper makes its last stand in most businesses — and it’s also where the gap between your documents and your ERP is widest. Delivery data captured on paper can take hours or days to make it back into the system, if it makes it at all.
The paper symptoms:
- Proof of delivery captured on paper forms or clipboards
- Delivery data manually entered into Syspro after the fact (if at all)
- Disputes with customers over what was delivered, when, and in what condition
- No real-time visibility into delivery status
- Mobile workers cut off from Syspro data in the field
What Paperless ePOD looks like with smrtr:
smrtr ePOD & Mobile Forms replaces every clipboard and paper form with intelligent electronic capture — on any mobile device, connected directly to Syspro. Proof of delivery is captured at the point of delivery, complete with signatures, photos, timestamps, and GPS data, and synced back to Syspro in real time.
Key capabilities include:
- Electronic proof of delivery with signature capture
- Photo and condition documentation at point of delivery
- Intelligent mobile forms for any field workflow
- Automated customer notifications on delivery completion
- Real-time Syspro sync — data is in the system before the driver leaves the lot
- Texting app integration for driver communication
How to Build Your Paperless ERP Roadmap
The biggest mistake businesses make when tackling the document gap is trying to solve everything at once. Paperless ERP is a journey, not a single project — and the best results come from starting with the highest-impact area and building momentum from there.
Here’s a practical framework for getting started:
Step 1: Map your biggest gap Where is paper causing the most pain right now? Start with the area where documents are slowest, most error-prone, or creating the most risk. For most businesses, that’s AP or supplier compliance.
Step 2: Define what “done” looks like Before you start, get specific about your outcome. Not “we want to go paperless” — but “we want to process invoices in under 24 hours with no manual keying and a full audit trail.” Specific targets drive specific results.
Step 3: Map your Syspro touchpoints Every document has a home in Syspro — a transaction, a supplier, a PO, a customer record. Mapping those connections before you start ensures your solution is built around your actual workflow, not a generic one.
Step 4: Start small, prove fast Pick one process, automate it, and measure the result. A quick win builds organizational momentum and makes the next phase easier to fund and easier to get buy-in for.
Step 5: Expand systematically Once one area is running smoothly, expand to the next. The four smrtr solution areas are designed to work independently or together — you can start with AP Automation and add Document Management when you’re ready, or tackle all four at once if your organization has the appetite.
The Leverage Question
Here’s the frame that changes how most Syspro users think about this:
You’ve already made the investment in your ERP. Syspro is powerful, configurable, and built to support complex operations. But the return on that investment is capped by the information it has access to.
Every document that lives outside Syspro is information your ERP can’t use. Every manual step is a gap between what your system knows and what’s actually happening in your business.
Paperless ERP isn’t about going green or cutting paper costs (though those are real benefits). It’s about leverage — getting the full return on the ERP investment you’ve already made.
“Paperless ERP is really about leverage. You’ve invested in Syspro. Paper is what’s standing between you and getting the most out of that investment.” — Stephanie Gentz, Director of Marketing and Project Management, smrtr Solutions
Ready to Close the Gap?
smrtr builds Document Management, AP Automation, Supplier Compliance, and ePOD solutions purpose-built for Syspro — not bolted on, not adapted from another platform, but designed from the ground up to work the way Syspro users actually work.
If you’re ready to map your document gap and build a plan, we’d love to help.
Book a live working session: Build Your Paperless ERP Roadmap in 60 Minutes
Reach out directly to us today:
- Stephanie Gentz — Director of Marketing and Project Management book here
- Scott Sanders — Strategic Solutions & Partner Manager book here
smrtr Solutions | smrtrsolutions.com | Purpose-built for Syspro