4 Benefits of Going Paperless
Ictual would like to support you in this period to ensure that your employees can also work from home or locations other than the office. After all, in this bizarre time and in the digital future: United we stand.
If you are considering going paperless in your organization, there’s no better time to do so. Scanning and document management technology has made it easy and cost-effective to convert paper documents into digital files. If you’re still on the fence about going paperless, we’ve highlighted four benefits that may help you make a decision.
There are many more advantages in going paperless. For more information about diminishing your reliance on paper and going digital, download our whitepaper. You will find the advantages explained in detail, what you can do and three easy steps for implementing a paperless office:
To get an indication of your cost savings and return on investment if you implement a paperless solution like our Decos Join click here:
Our leading document management solution (DMS) , Decos Join, enables you to move away from working with paper and start working digital! Learn more about the most used DMS in the Caribbean here:
1. Reduced business costs
Less paper means reduced costs for your business.
Research has shown that the biggest cost saving when going paperless is achieved through reduction in time spent on searching for, or recreating lost documents. Paper based file retrieval on average costs 86 hour per employee per year. We can all do the math.
Also, when your business is paper-dependent, cases of paper must be purchased and kept on hand at all times. If not purchased outright, printers and photocopiers come with leases and service agreements. Digital information, on the other hand, can be shared without the use of paper, printers, or photocopiers, and multiple individuals in different locations can view and even edit the same document simultaneously.
Moreover, filing cabinets tend to take up a lot of floor space in your office. The square footage they occupy may represent a sizable portion of your office lease costs. Fortunately, digital records storage allows you to reduce your office space requirements, reducing lease costs. If you own your office space, floor space previously used for physical storage of documents can be reallocated for revenue-generating business processes.
2. Easy information access and sharing
In a paper-based organization, information access depends on where your documents are stored and your proximity to them. If you’re out of the office and need to access a paper document, you either have to drive back to the office to retrieve the file or ask someone to retrieve it for you. The latter may not be a secure option if the document you need contains sensitive or confidential information, and in that case, they may not even be able to access the document you need. But digital files can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, on any device to support your information access needs.
3. Improved operational efficiency
Paper-dependent business processes are slow and error-prone. Inefficient filing and retrieval processes and lost documents can result in issues like:
- Lost productivity
- Employee frustration
- Failure to meet customer expectations
- Privacy-related legal issues
However, digital documents streamline workflow processes. All information access is electronic, enabling:
- Automation of tasks
- Faster invoicing
- Responsive customer service
- Document access control and user logging
Replacing paper-reliant workflow processes with digital ones helps your organization be far more efficient.
4. Optimize Compliance
By going paperless your organization will:
- Minimize risk of losing critical information
- Have faster access to information to demonstrate compliance
- Create evidence of business activity (for audit purposes)
- Easily comply with audit guidelines and legal requirements
There are many more advantages in going paperless. For more information about diminishing your reliance on paper and going digital, download our whitepaper. You will find the advantages explained in detail, an outline of what you can do and three easy steps for implementing a paperless office:
Learn more about the document management system Decos Join here.