With the evolution of document management, taking care of business has never been easier. There are many reasons to go paperless, but reducing the time and money spent on document management are probably the most important. Document management systems have come a long way, so much so that it’s impossible to imagine life without them.
Keeping Your Documents Organized
The biggest challenge for organizations that require a lot of paperwork is keeping everything organized. While filing cabinets can provide you with storage and organization, there is a limit to their use. Generally, you have to know a lot of information about a specific document in order to find it in a company that uses paper storage.
After all, you can only organize using a couple of different criteria. Oftentimes paperwork is stored by name and date, but what if you’re looking for a specific order based on its location or product? Finding obscure paperwork by digging through filing cabinets can take hours at a time.
Electronic document storage has made these headaches a thing of the past. You won’t see employees searching for documents for very long. While they still have to find certain files to do their job, they can do this with the click of a mouse.
Taking Advantage of Digital Filing
One of the best things about electronic document management is how easy it is to store your files. Previously, your employees had to print, staple, label, and file your documents. With DMS, storing a document is as easy as clicking a button. It hardly takes any time at all.
You can even automate your filing processes if you store a lot of paperwork. For example, invoices, customer requests, and order forms can be entered electronically or scanned automatically, then they can be sorted and routed through the workflow to the appropriate employee.
Stop Purchasing Paper and Toner
Your employees probably appreciate the fact that they no longer get paper cuts at work, but your organization can really appreciate the reduction in cost, as you’re no longer buying paper and toner in bulk. There is no need to print documents because you can access them on your computer.
Installing a document management system is a huge money saver for your company, but not simply due to the fact that you’re saving trees by eliminating paper. Having access to your documents electronically saves you a lot of man hours, too, which is going to make your company more profitable in the long run.
Keeping Your Organization Focused
One thing about paperwork is that it’s easy to lose sight of what you actually want to accomplish. If taking care of your customers includes generating an enormous amount of paperwork, then your employees will focus more on the paper and less on the customer.
But what if taking care of business doesn’t revolve around paper? Your DMS uses a workflow to help your employees go through the steps of doing their job. Now instead of dealing with paperwork, your employees are free to truly help your customers and respond to their needs.
One great thing about document management software is that it’s keeping your organization focused. Instead of creating a paper trail, your organization’s employees can ensure that nobody falls through the cracks. Your customers will be happier, and your employees will feel more productive. It’s a win-win!
Locking Your Cabinets Is a Thing of the Past
Your organization has always been compliant with legal and other regulations regarding record-keeping. In the past, you had to designate certain employees who had access to specific files. They’d carry the key for the filing room or a key for a specific filing cabinet.
Now, that’s a thing of the past. You still don’t let all of your employees access all of your documents. After all, you’re required to keep many of them under lock and key, including HR paperwork. But now you no longer have to give specific employees a key and hope they use it as instructed.
Your document management system has taken over the role of a security guard. With user-based access, you control which of your employees has access to which documents. Some may only view certain files, other may be able to edit them, and others may have no access to them at all based on their position within the company.
Updating Your Documents Is Easy
Many regulations require companies to regularly update certain paperwork. Whether it’s tax-related or falls under another regulatory agency, it takes a lot of time and effort to ensure that all of your paperwork is up to date. Back in the days of using paper, it was also difficult to make sure that you were using the most recent copy of a specific document, whether it was an order form or a tax form.
Fortunately, document management has made this process easy. Your DMS can alert you if there are older versions of the same file, to ensure that you’re using the right one. Can you imagine going back to using paper? We bet you’d rather not.