When your entire business is focused on bringing customers the services they need, paperwork becomes a necessary evil. The work is about understanding the needs of each customer and adapting to provide it a way that will leave them satisfied with your service and paperwork often feels like it just gets in the way. If your employees work out in the field, often circumstances and client requests can change enough that new paperwork is necessary before their desires can be fulfilled. When this happens, your field agent must call into headquarters, request a documentation change and may even need to drive back to get a copy for the customer to sign before new work can be done. However, in the digital age of virtual documents and cloud storage, this level of hassle is completely unnecessary. If your services company is still working with paper documents or even just local-only storage, it may be time to upgrade to a cloud-based document management system.
What is a Document Management System?
Imagine a world without collating, sorting, or searching for hours through big filing boxes of old documents for a single helpful form. What if you didn’t even have to organize your own folders of digital paperwork on your computer? Whether your office is running on pure paper documents, has successfully gone digital or, like many, runs in a strange hybrid of the two, a document management system can make your business life a lot easier.
A document management system is an online platform that stores digitized documents, organizes them for you, and makes them available for secured access from anywhere. This is built from a combination of great software design, cloud storage, and a strong security infrastructure to help you store, organize, secure, and access all your important business documents from anywhere with an internet connection. In many ways, using a document management system is like your own personal concierge that never sleeps, always knows what form you need, and doesn’t require a paycheck or a tip.
Putting Your Business Documents Online
Most service businesses have a few documents that get a lot of use and many more that are only needed on occasion, and a huge collection of documents that are relevant only to internal business procedures. Even if your business procedures still involve getting signatures on paper documents, why keep the originals or even your for-the-record copies in physical form where a stray cup of coffee could ruin them? Consider how many of your documents will be you need to access every day or every now and again and how easy it would be to simply search for them through a helpful online platform rather than shuffling through your local records or hauling around file folders. Scanning all your documents is a big task but it only needs to be done once.
Flexibility in the Field
One of the biggest challenges of any service industry business is dealing with customers while away from the office. Whether you maintain HVAC systems or manage real estate, your clients often want to make special requests once you’re on the scene rather than arranging them in your work order ahead of time. If you came armed with one set of paperwork and the client asks for something else, with an online document management system, getting the new paperwork is quick and easy. All your field agents need to do is log in through their mobile device, make a copy for the customer, and get an e-signature to continue.
In some cases, the client might even come to you with a document they’d like you to accept. Whether this is a filled out form you left with them or a new piece of paperwork to worry about, your field professionals don’t have to drive it all the way back to the office to proceed. With full mobile integration, they can simply take a picture of the new document with their device and the management platform will upload it into your document system.
Easy Digital File Sharing
File sharing is a major part of any business as you make sure that everyone has a copy of all the documents they need. These may be client documents full of useful information, blank forms to be put to use later on, or important memos that inform the team of new policies. Whatever the document, sharing can either involve a lot of scanning, printing, and collating or you can simply make an online copy available to the correct list of people. Your document management system can quickly and easily ensure not only that your employees have access to all the documents they need to do their jobs, but also that clients and business partners get a digital copy of anything they require without the hassle of printing, stapling, and delivering by hand or through the mail. With role-based permissions, you can even be certain that no one will be able to access any private information that they don’t need.
The Perfect Disaster Recovery
On top of everything else a document management system can do to increase your efficiency, flexibility, and accessibility, it also provides perfect protection against disasters. From ransomware encryption attacks to rampaging hurricanes, even if your office is completely wiped out, you will still have access to all your vital business paperwork. With documents stored on the cloud instead of in physical folders or local hard drives, you can rest assured that no matter what happens, you can still get your work done from any computer or device with internet access. Client information, financial records, and work product will all be perfectly safe in your cloud-based document management system.
What ever your Industry, here at eFileCabinet, we strive to provide the highest quality of document management. Through our expertly designed platform, you can access your documents from any computer or mobile device with a quick and easy workflow that not only manages access but also tracks the progress and changes of each individual document. Whether you provide repair services, home care, or run a consulting service, eFileCabinet can help you streamline your workflow, eliminate the paperwork hassle, and serve your clients more efficiently with our document management system. To find out more about the eFileCabinet platform and what we can do for you, please contact us today!
Other Helpful Resources
Infographic: The Time and Cost of Paper in the Healthcare Industry
