In today’s world, you can do almost anything you can imagine with the right technology. Communication becomes effortless and the most complex office tasks can be automated. Document management systems are one of the most essential software that every company should use. There are countless reasons why businesses from healthcare to real estate and every industry in between are switching to a document management system.
Document management systems greatly extend your office’s capabilities with all the common office problems that they solve. One of the biggest draws to a DMS is that they can streamline your slow and confusing work processes.
System Integrations
Many businesses have to switch between platforms every few minutes and enter the same information into each program to do their work effectively. By using an all-in-one document management solution that integrates with other platforms, you can cut out your slow processes.
The best DMS products are designed to interact and sync with enterprise software. It’s important to have both A) computers with robust, system-level API (Application Programming Interface) and B) DMS software that works in accordance with this API, although most operating systems and office management software will intersect finely without intervention.
An Open API allows programmers to make their own rules and use their system jointly with another. This can mean working with a content management system, financial software, or any other type of technology together with your existing system.
Operating Systems
The ease of use of any DMS pertains, in part, to both whether and how well it syncs with an operating system such as Windows or Macintosh OSX.
From an organizational standpoint, integrating to Windows operating systems is most critical; however, Microsoft Office software like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook are mission-critical software tools for many organizations, and many DMS vendors have already built their products exclusively around the Windows operating system.
Scanners
DMS should integrate with high performance scanners, like ScanSnap by Fujitsu, for instance. Fujitsu turns scanning into a one-button, easy process through a compact technology, offering multi-sheet scanning to users.
The better the scanner’s capacity to upload documents accordingly, the more efficient the scanning portion of going paperless becomes. With the right scanner, paper documents can be automatically uploaded to your DMS.
Audit Trails
There are two kinds of audits simplified by document management software: internal audits and external audits. The internal audit trail function of DMS allows administrators and managers employed by the organization to track the action performed on each document.
An external audit, which entails a third-party neither employed nor paid by the business under audit makes information accessible, traceable, and compliant within the DMS. The most crucial benefit of the DMS external audit trail function is the reduced amount of time it takes to complete the audit. Third-party auditors can even use a separate portal to get all the necessary information.
This is especially useful with the ever-increasing information that each organization handles.
CSV File and Profile Importing
The days of data entry are on the brink of extinction because of the functionality CSV (Common Separated Value) offers. This feature essentially turns DMS into a report-making tool for its users.
A key component of data migration, CSV is essential to any implementation of a new or updated office management software. A document management system that does not have some form of CSV importing will require manual uploading, whether numerical or text-heavy, through either a text-editor or a word-processing platform—requiring manual reformatting efforts for end users.
File importing can automate preexisting information into a Microsoft Excel file, which allows data saving in a table structured format of the OMS system.
Security and Compliance
One of the most tedious business processes is applying the appropriate security measures to all of your records. It takes time to research what security level you need to reach and apply them to each individual document.
By adopting a DMS, you can apply whatever security features necessary to stay compliant with regulatory organizations like HIPAA, OSHA, and FINRA. You can use role-based permissions so that only the right people can access them without always having to monitor your documents.
Robust document management systems also have retention options. You will never have to take the time out of your day to shred expired documents or sift through unneeded paperwork.
Document management systems can streamline all of your work processes. See for yourself how a DMS can change the way you work by scheduling a demo with us today.