The Club Atlético Osasuna has more than 100 years of football history and has carried out several improvement projects in recent years: it renovated the El Sadar stadium, which was later named the best stadium in the world, and invested in technology and software applications to support internal processes. In the realm of document management, the first-division club migrated to DocuWare Cloud in 2023, becoming the cloud client number 1,000 for the company in Spain.
Challenges and Objectives
Osasuna used to maintain multiple filing systems: physical documents were kept at both the Tajonar training complex and the stadium offices, while electronic files were stored in folder structures on servers. The biggest bottleneck was processing incoming invoices. What arrived digitally was printed and distributed to the various departments for approval, alongside the paper invoices. The process worked well as long as the volume of documents remained manageable.
In recent years, however, Osasuna has grown substantially, and the number of related invoices and requests has increased accordingly. For example, departments often request specific invoices to document the use of grant funds for sporting activities. This entailed a substantial extra workload for the accounting staff: they had to locate these invoices in the archives, digitize them, and email them. When it became clear that continuing without adding staff was no longer feasible, the decision was made to digitize the entire process. DocuWare had already been used by the club since 2012 as an archiving solution for certain documents. Together with DocuWare’s partner, the migration to the modern cloud platform was planned for early 2023.
Greater Efficiency Through Process Digitization
Today, roughly 100 invoices per week are uploaded to the cloud from Osasuna’s two locations: paper receipts are scanned and digital invoices are transferred to DocuWare via Outlook integration. DocuWare automatically captures all indexing data and files the documents. In the subsequent workflow, the accounting department distributes the digitized invoices to a total of seven departments, which consult them in their electronic to-do lists and approve them with a digital stamp.
The system also sends notifications to users so they can initiate approvals directly from email. In the final step, the accounting department reviews the approved invoices on screen and records them. A total of 12 employees work with DocuWare Cloud. In addition to invoice approval, the football club also uses the solution for subscription billing and in-person ticket sales at the box office.
Digital Transformation Increases Security
Digitization has not only made the approval process more efficient. With information now centrally available, authorized departments can view invoices independently and no longer need to consult the accounting department.
Traceability is also easier: DocuWare records who approved which invoice and when, and archives related documents such as meeting minutes or budget plans. At the same time, Osasuna was able to significantly increase document security. In a top-division club there is a lot of sensitive information, from player contracts to agents’ fees. With DocuWare Cloud’s sophisticated rights system, individual access rights can be defined precisely.
Based on this positive experience, the club plans to expand the system’s use in the coming years: In the future, not only will all contract and personnel management be integrated, but also the Osasuna Foundation, which participates in various social activities. All of this with the support of LaLiga, which has long championed digital transformation and encourages its members to modernize both internal and external processes.
