How to Manage Documents in a Paperless Environment

Consider for a moment how many documents are floating around your business at any given point. Memos, notes, invoices, receipts, and whatever else you happen to accumulate in the course of business, all floating around the office. This isn’t a great approach, and unfortunately, the classic solution for this, the filing cabinet, isn’t the most effective solution anymore.

However, there are now alternatives to the classic filing cabinet and other now-antiquated document management options that are much better suited to the needs of the modern office. In fact, these solutions are what enable businesses today to effectively go paperless.

As printing has become a more costly endeavor, its associated expenses have begun to absorb a larger piece of a budgetary pie chart. Between the costs of the printers and other hardware components themselves, the materials they use up as they operate, and the costs associated with your staff filing all of this information away, businesses have seen their budgets whittled away. Furthermore, it can be very difficult to locate information that has been filed this way - especially if it was filed incorrectly.

Let’s review some of the solutions that we now have access to, that resolve exactly these pain points.

Document Management
Let’s face facts - one of the biggest weaknesses inherent of hard copies how difficult they can be to find (especially if they’ve been misfiled). However, a document management system makes that much simpler, as digitized copies can be stored in the cloud and searched for. Furthermore, while the reduction of printing costs offers a considerable value to a business, the time saved by this solution assists in making it a worthwhile investment, as all documents are turned into searchable PDF files.

While the initial implementation of a document management system may come at an intimidating cost to some, it quickly proves its worth. This is only made more apparent by the fact that, once the solution is in place, the only costs it creates are the ones needed to support the hosting platform.

Document Digitization
Digitizing documents has been widely adopted in recent years, as it makes it much easier to store and organize them. Not only does this approach make it simpler to store vast quantities of data, it also allows certain documents to be much easier to locate. If a member of your staff ever needs to view a document, all they will need to do is search for the right keywords and there the document will be.

Security
Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t discuss how your documents are able to be secured within your document management solution. As it is a cloud-hosted solution, it simply wouldn’t be complete without some kind of access control. Many platforms come with this access control baked-in, some even using biometrics or two-factor authentication. More complete control over your document management system is possible, if you are willing and able to invest in a private cloud database. Once implemented, you and your staff can confidently and securely access any document needed from anywhere that has Internet access.

To learn more about a document management system, or other solutions available to you to assist your business’ operations, reach out to Washington Works by calling 301-571-5040.