If you’ve been left waiting at the station when it comes to getting on board with an electronic document management system, now may be the time to catch your train. There are more reasons than ever to think about implementing document management in your business – not the least of which is more green.
Increasingly businesses are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint, and the reason for this is simple: environmental and economic goals are often more in alignment with one another than you might think. Going paperless can help your organization become more environmentally friendly, allowing you to both go green and save some green in the process.
For these reasons, and many others, there’s never been a better time to consider the sizeable advantages (reduced overhead, increased efficiency, security and collaboration) of going paperless.
What is a Document Management System?
Document Management Systems help businesses capture, manage and store electronic documents and digital images of paper-based information that is often captured using a scanner or fed to the system directly from other business software. Your organization can either choose to install document management software directly onto your own servers and manage the data yourself or adopt an offsite system in the cloud, with hosted software and remotely stored data.
While converting your office to one that’s paperless can, at first, seem like an overwhelming task, you’ll find the ease of today’s solutions make that transition smoother than ever. And when you think about all benefits of a paperless office, you’ll find it’s not only environmentally friendly and cost-effective, but it can also help improve the efficiency of your business.
The Benefits of Going Paperless
Organization for your Organization
Document management software can help your business be more organized and efficient than ever, allowing users to capture, store and retrieve files with relative ease. The software allows many ways to organize and find documents, including tagging them with search keys like invoice number, date, company name, etc. Many systems even allow for full text searching of documents. The software also reduces the risk of lost or misplaced files, providing you with secure storage, access restrictions based on user rights, and a back up of your system’s information should you ever need it.
Eco-Friendly Business
While recycling, choosing LEED certified buildings for your offices, and offering transportation incentives to employees who commute to work are all great ways for your business to make a positive impact on the environment, document management systems can prove to be a more cost effective way to reach your ecological goals. Not only does a robust system reduce the amount of paper your organization uses, but digital copies are much easier to access, store and distribute. And with more consumers concerned about their own environmental footprints, going digital can be something worth touting to your customer base.
Cost Savings
Not only will an electronic document management system reduce the amount of natural resources your company uses, it will do so while lowering operational and administrative costs. Digital document management helps streamline and automate previously paper-heavy workflows, thus dramatically improving business processes like invoicing, project management, order processing and customer service. Workers get more work done, and get it done more quickly and with fewer errors, which can lead to additional cost savings. Plus, you won’t need those costly, space-hogging file cabinets and the extra square footage required to save and store old documents offsite. Those who choose cloud-based document management systems will find they won’t need in-house tech support as their hosted software provider will take care of everything from implementation, to maintenance and upgrades.
Increased Data Security
Rapidly changing and emerging new technologies bring with them new threats to your organization’s data security. This translates to added responsibilities for keeping that data safe. Digital document management offers better security than paper, particularly if you have built in back-ups of your data or subscribe to a service that does the back-up for you. With customizable access privileges and the ability to monitor and display access history and even conduct periodic security audits, your organization’s important documents will remain confidential.
Easy Sharing and Project Collaboration
By implementing an on-premises or cloud-based system, you’ll be increasing your ability to collaborate. For businesses with multiple teams all working on the same project, it can be nearly impossible to have everyone working on the same page, if there isn’t a central repository where all documents live. Paper can’t be shared as easily and must be printed and distributed. With a document management system, teams have the ability to grant secure access to the same documents and data, in real-time, dramatically improving the way the can access, share and collaboration on work.
Need more information on how document management software can help you? Contact our sales team!