While it isn’t always realistic for a company to be 100 percent paperless, reducing the amount of paper that employees shuffle can lead to increased efficiencies and cost savings. With advancements such as optical character recognition and sophisticated security algorithms, the benefits of going paperless may be more abundant than you think.
The Benefits of Going Paperless
- Save time: On average, an employee spends one hour per month looking for and replacing files in cabinets. Instead of spending 10 minutes searching through file cabinets, digital copies of documents allow employees to search records from their workstations in a matter of seconds using keywords.
- Improved document organization: Up to 7 percent of paper documents get misfiled or lost. Depending on the document, this can increase an organization’s liability. Whether you’re at the beginning of the document scanning process or already have a digital documentation system in place, today’s scanning software saves, sorts and organizes documents in a manner that’s logical and simple to retrieve. In addition to using the software for client files, companies can also scan invoices, receipts and other paperwork to keep the data easily accessible at all times.
- Provide access to real-time information: In the past, when a customer brought in a document that multiple divisions of the company needed, it could take up to a week or more for an organization to mail, receive and process the information to various offices. By creating a digital copy of client paperwork, you can instantly upload a clear reproduction of the document to a client’s file and send it to a colleague halfway across the world in a matter of seconds. In addition to improving customer service, scanning documents eliminates the worry of paperwork getting lost in the mail and illegible fax transmissions.
- Save money: The initial expense of going paperless relates to purchasing the necessary hardware and software, and taking the time to scan documents or hiring a company to provide this service. After a paperless system is in place, your company will experience cost savings as employees use less paper, printer ink cartridge replacements become less frequent, and you reduce your dependence on expensive equipment, such as copiers and fax machines. On average, organizations save up to $500 per employee by going paperless.
- Save space: File cabinets are big and expensive. Depending on the size of your company, you may need to rent storage space just for files. Saving documents to a hard drive or cloud-based system frees a significant amount of physical space and company funds that you can use to grow the organization.
- Improved disaster preparedness and recovery: Professionals can restore many documents after a disaster, such as a flood. However, the documents may be gone forever if someone steals them or there is a devastating fire. Having digital copies of documents prevents the need to rebuild files, saves on restoration costs and helps ensure business continuity.
- Improved security: You choose where you want to save digital documents and backup files, as well as the security measures that protect them. You can also set the limits regarding who can access and alter different digital documents. Since document management software tracks these movements, there is always a paper trail.
If you experience a disaster, salvage your documents by contacting Polygon right away. In addition to using the latest technologies to clean and dry documents—from heirloom books to water-logged films—we offer document scanning services that preserve records and give you instant access to vital files. Talk to a Polygon representative today if you are in need of immediate document restoration services or want to learn more about preparing for a disaster with our Code Blue® program.
[Photo from Rosemarie Voegtll via CC License 2.0]
