By Tara Penner

As technology continues to permeate the workplace, many businesses are interested in going paperless.

Whether this stems from a desire to make documents easier to manage, or from an effort to ‘go green,’ the decision can lead to more efficient work processes and better-managed information.

Here are a few things to consider if you’re debating a paperless strategy for your office.

Start Simple

One of the easiest places to begin is with your billings. Many companies offer paperless billing and instituting a process to receive and store bills electronically can get you an initial quick win.

For businesses that frequently receive faxes, switching to a fax-to-email service is another simple step towards a paperless office.

Need a Signature? No Problem

Another source of paper in the workplace are documents that require a signature. This can include things like contracts, purchase requests and human resources documents.

Whether you use an email-based option or a third-party signing solution, electronic signatures are easier to implement than you may think and there are many tools on the market to suit the needs of your particular business.

Better Forms of Forms

If your company uses a notable number of physical forms to gather information, switching to digital forms can save a tremendous amount of paper and time.

Depending on the tool, forms may be linked to a database or saved as electronic documents on a shared or cloud-hosted system, but no matter the particular mechanism, eliminating hard-copy forms reduces paper and opens opportunities for greater efficiency and automation of your business processes.

The Great Cleanse

If you have a room in your office filled with boxes and filing cabinets full of paper, you are not only losing space that could be used for more productive purposes, but the lack of digital access to your records is preventing your employees from finding information that can help them do their jobs.

Scanning of these historical records can be done internally or outsourced, but the resulting files and their associated metadata (author, document type, effective date, etc.), can then be stored in a central document repository. Online and mobile access become options with digitized records, as well as enterprise search technologies, which make information as ‘findable’ as possible.

With proper backup and maintenance systems in place, you can then get shredding and renovating that dusty room that’s become available.

Reaping the Rewards

By moving to a paperless office you can save space and resources, but digitizing your documents also allows you to take advantage of new technologies that can help your business be more efficient and profitable.

Consider the power that now comes from having your documents, data and processes digitally: mobile access, enterprise search, Records Management, Business Process Management.

The first steps towards paperless open up a world of productivity tools that can help you maintain the cutting edge in a competitive marketplace.

– Tara Penner is the Principal Consultant at Pivot Data, a document and data management consulting practice located in Kimberley. An AIIM-Certified Information Professional, her experience includes work with small businesses and not-for-profits to some of the largest engineering companies in the world. When not sitting in front of her laptop, you’ll generally find Tara in the trails or on the ski hill with her human and animal family and friends. For more information or to contact Tara, visit www.pivotdata.ca.

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