Have you gone truly paperless?

Has your business gone paperless yet? We mean, really paperless. It’s way past the time that any business should have gone paperless, yet many businesses struggle to make the change, despite the benefits.

The benefits of going paperless

Saves time

No more standing at the printer waiting for it to churn out meeting minutes, agendas, reports. Simply view them digitally at the touch of a button, from within an efficient document management system.

Reduces clutter

Increase the sense of space, calm and organisation in your office without those overfilled filing cabinets and wobbly piles of paper on desks.

Increases agility

You need never be caught out forgetting important documents again since you’ll be able to access all you need digitally.

Increases security

Providing you have the right protocols in place, digital documents are safer in the cloud than they are in physical form in your office.

Saves money

In the long-run you will save money on physical paper, printing, postage and storage. Yes, some of this will be offset by the maintenance and investment in a digital system, but they will be less of an ongoing drain on your resources.

Increases customer service

Your customers will expect you to be paperless. Better, more digital, accounting practices, project management and communication will all provide a better service.

Increases staff skills and morale

Staff who are digitally aware will bring untold benefits to your business and feel good that they are working in the most technology advanced, and efficient, way.

The challenges for going paperless

If your business hasn’t yet gone paperless, your biggest challenge is likely to be the successful adoption of technology, or being comfortable migrating to that technology and using it to take care of all your was-paper processes and procedures.

You will need to put time and thought into establishing the technology and systems you need to run your operation, but the benefits and sense of security, and better way of working will be worth it in the end.

To go paperless…

Digitalise your paper

Yes, it’s time-consuming, but you will need to scan all your documents so that they can be saved digitally in your filing system. Consider the naming protocol for all your documents so that they can be easily searchable and findable.

Adopt a cloud-based system

Far and away the best way to save your documents is to upload them to a cloud-based system. Documents are then easily shared and collaborated upon, and accessed, as well as extremely secure – providing you have the right security protocols in place.

Set up digital signing

An e-signature or digitally signing a document is now a perfect substitute for a physical signature. Get set up with a digital signing programme that will also track which documents you’ve signed and which are yet to be signed. Or, become familiar with the procedure of superimposing signatures on documents where required.

Ask for paperless billing

Ensure you’re switched to paperless billing with all suppliers – you may have to specifically ask.

Use digital accounting

If you haven’t ‘gone digital’ yet, now is the time to do so. Your customers expect not to be billed by post any longer.

No printing allowed!

You can say no to printing by simply getting rid of the printers and implementing your new digital ways of working.

Outlaw paper and pen note-taking

You can set an example by using Word or note-taking software on your device instead of traditional hand note taking with a pen. You could even go a step further by ceasing to purchase notebooks and post-it notes.

It’s a whole lot more IT

Replacing your paper involves a lot more digital technology than maybe you previously had. If you need help to implement or get up and running with any system, speak to our IT services experts, who can help you be a TRULY paperless business.

< Read more articles on our IT Academy