Despite our reliance on digital technologies, the truth is that many companies still operate using paper documentation. Whether you’re processing orders for your lumber mill or maintaining patient records at a dental office, juggling business information is a challenging task. That’s why a document management solution that captures, stores and retrieves data can be an asset to any organization, creating:
- Increased flexibility among workers by eliminating paper
- Improved client relations via easier access to customer data
- Peace of mind knowing you can retrieve your documents anywhere, anytime
Apart from the benefits of an efficient document management system, here are some of the advantages you’ll notice right away.
Reduced Storage Space
It’s no surprise that hard copies take up tons of storage space. Invoices, tax slips, customer files, and contracts are just some of the documents kept on hand, no matter how big or small the enterprise. Consider all the valuable space that could be freed up by converting these documents into digital form. With commercial property costs at record highs, you’re actually paying money to store all these hard copies on site. By decreasing the amount of storage room required, you could save on operating costs by moving to a smaller office space altogether.
Eliminate the need for filing cabinets, boxes, and bins by implementing a document management solution. You could instantly reduce storage space by up to 80%.
Easier Retrieval
Your employees are probably wasting hundreds of hours a week looking for paperwork and sorting through it. Added to that, after handling those documents they must be put away correctly. Otherwise, paperwork that is misfiled or missing will affect your entire operation and lead to costly mistakes. A document management solution can instantly solve these problems by making the retrieval process exponentially easier. This time-saving tool can search through thousands of documents by word or phrase, and pull it up within seconds. With an internet connection, your digital files can be accessed from virtually anywhere.
Businesses like legal offices and medical clinics can certainly benefit from a solution that simplifies document retrieval. By eliminating the need for personnel to go hunting for paperwork multiple times a day, you’re freeing them up to focus on other areas of growth, like marketing or customer relations.
Enhanced Security
When important documents go missing, there’s a good chance it could get into the wrong hands. Unless all your paperwork is being shredded and professionally discarded, you’re exposing your business to information theft, which could threaten the integrity of your operations. A document management solution can enhance the security of your data by ensuring all documents requires a password to login. Today’s software will also leave an audit trail of who has viewed a document, when it was accessed, and whether it was modified. You can also set up an alert system that will let management know when highly-sensitive data is retrieved.
By digitizing your documents and adding password protection, you’re shielding your business from fraud, identity theft, and illegitimate transactions. Ash Conversions also has the ability to store all your data within a cloud-based infrastructure. Electronic content is always more secure than regular paper storage, plus user access can be updated on the spot for last-minute organizational changes.
Better Collaboration
Information sharing is a breeze when your company has implemented a document sharing solution. When all your paperwork is digitized, employees can easily collaborate and make changes together in a virtual setting. No need to shuffle papers back and forth with sections crossed out in red marker. Everyone logs into the retrieval system, looks through the appropriate documents and modifies content as needed. Electronic imaging also simplifies the document sharing process by allowing you to email files back and forth within the solution’s framework.
By allowing your employees to easily share ideas with one another, you’re maximizing efficiency because they’re now able to complete projects faster. Better collaboration means more opportunities to foster creativity, which in turn will only benefit the quality of your products and services.
Better Backup and Recovery
In many organizations, the value of their data will far exceed the cost of their IT systems and office equipment. Lost data is irreplaceable, especially if it includes ‘company secrets’ or other forms of invaluable information imperative to your business’ success. Because it’s so easy for hard copies to disappear or become damaged in a flood or fire, digitizing your documents is key backing up your documentation.
Digital archiving makes it possible to backup your documents and recover them should your organization endure a security breach, natural disaster, or systems crash. By getting rid of paper documentation, you’re also eliminating opportunities for human error. Physical paper can be misplaced or misfiled, leading to costly mistakes and unhappy clients. With a document management solution, all data is centrally stored, which means it cannot be misfiled after viewing. And even if it is deleted or changed by accident, electronic files can be recovered easily using cross-indexing techniques.
Improved Regulatory Compliance
Whether your business is in lumber manufacturing or healthcare logistics, you will have regulations you need to follow. From the way data is handled between workers to the way it is categorized and stored, compliance can affect many areas of your operations. Non-compliance can lead to financial penalties and invasive monitoring of your business from regulatory bodies.
A powerful document management system will ensure that your organization is always in compliance. It should also have the ability to automate certain aspects like records retention schedules and collect preset data for auditing purposes.
For more information about digital document storage, call us at 800-719-9621 or submit a contact form by clicking the ‘Contact’ button below.
