A paperless office makes working more fluid and productive because it eliminates manual processes and automates repetitive tasks. While a fully digital environment was once beyond the reach of most businesses, recent technology advances have made going paperless easier — and essential.
When properly implemented and configured, paperless office software helps people to quickly access the content they need, complete tasks quickly and then archive the file securely. It frees them from tedious, time-consuming tasks and the frustrations of not being able to find information.
An entirely electronic environment makes processing invoices, purchase orders and even service orders faster and more accurate. For example, if a supplier submits information to you electronically, your paperless office software is able to automatically capture data from those files and forms, eliminating redundant data entry. This allows your employees to focus on reviewing data instead of keying it in.
Here are five reasons why more organizations are working to make the paperless office a reality.
- Streamlined workflows: When the right content is accessible at the touch of a button, it takes only seconds to route and share documents to any number of people across multiple departments and systems. This ease of access greatly improves efficiency in a variety of contexts, such as approval processes.
- Greater agility: Your competitors are only going to get faster, and the agility that a paperless office gives you is vital to remaining competitive.
- Reduced business risks: A fully digital environment allows you to work not only faster, but also safer. Access controls and data security make it easier and less expensive to maintain compliance, and reduces the chance of missing documents that could result in lost revenue. Compared to a paper-based system, enterprise content management (ECM) makes it easier to protect business secrets and confidential information, such as contract details as well as employee and patient data.
- Improved collections: Accounting departments benefit greatly from going paperless, especially when it comes to collections. A big challenge for collections departments is that it’s often difficult to access the necessary documents while on the phone with a customer. With an ECM system, critical business documents are easily retrievable, which tends to shorten the collections cycle and improve cash flow.
- Increased visibility: Using digital workflows instead of paper results in greater transparency, allowing management to monitor business processes in real time. This makes it easier to keep tasks on track and to identify problems and opportunities for improvement.
Going paperless has a greater impact on your larger business ecosystem than ever before. At this point, it’s likely that many of your customers and supply-side partners already have electronic processes in place. In addition to the benefits of digitizing your own internal paper-based processes, going paperless also allows you to extend your digital workflows to these external organizations.
Ready to learn more? Download our e-book, Become A Paperless Company In Less Than 90 Days and discover the six-step process for making your paperless office a reality.
