Too much paper cluttering your business? It may be time for a document management system.

Are piles of paper taking over your business? Are you struggling to keep track of important documents and find the space to store them effectively? It’s probably time to think about how a document management system can help you.

An absolute must in today’s digitally dependent world, a document management system will help you streamline your company’s workflow and boost employee productivity. A streamlined document management system will start with document creation, progresses to capture and storage, retrieval, manipulation, and finally, to circulation. In this post, we will look at how a document management system can transform your business for the better.

Why implement a document management system?

You are probably in agreement that documents are indispensable to pretty much all businesses. In day-to-day operations in the office, you probably go through countless documents, whether they are presentations, proposals, training handbooks, and brochures.

As you accumulate internal and external documents, it becomes increasingly important to store them safely and effectively so that you are efficiently able to find and keep track of all important documents. Your employees will save time by easily calling up their documents from the web from any location, rather than hunting down a paper file that requires them to be at the office these documents are located in. The option of having the ability to access documents anywhere in the world via the internet is especially significant for organizations with remote employees.

What is document management?

A document management system is defined as a tool that uses computer systems and software to store and manage electronic versions of documents, which are generally captured by a document scanner.

Document management is one of the best ways to improve your company’s workflow and reduce the amount of paper taking up office space. If you're looking at transforming your business with document management software, this handy glossary will get you up-to-speed on the terminology you'll come across as you look to improve your business

Generally, document management systems store digital copies of your documents in the cloud. By having your digital documents stored securely on a cloud-based network, you can access previous versions of documents that may have been accidentally deleted or corrupted, and you can use these services to archive old data to keep your day-to-day data retrieval clean and organized

A good document management system will keep all of your files in one place, help you track all of your important documents, improve accuracy, and offer you 24/7 access. This new structure and organization of your documents will help you solidify your company’s framework and infrastructure, facilitating growth and improving workflow.

Why is a document management system important for your business?

The sudden increase in digitalization across the world has resulted in sudden growth and reliance on digital files and documents. If you take a look at all of the documents that your business creates day-to-day you may be surprised at the number of important documents that your company generates. 

In all likelihood, these important documents are probably spread over a mixture of digital platforms such as Google Drive and Dropbox as well as physical copies that take up tremendous amounts of space in your office. 

While this system might work for the short-term, it does not present itself as a sustainable long-term solution. Important physical documents can get misplaced, damaged or lost. Online documents may be saved in private folders by mistake, or be shared incorrectly resulting in document loss and difficulty accessing said documents. Especially important for organizations in regulated industries, electronic document management system generates an audit trail for each document in the repository and makes passing a compliance audience much easier

It’s likely that you’ve wasted plenty of time in the past looking for a particular document in your emails, online storage, and desktop. While it’s harder to see the disorganization of digital files in the same way as seeing a pile of papers in your office, organizing digital documents and maintaining digital filing systems can be harder to deal with overall. 

Save time and boost your organization

Reducing your reliance on physical paper copies and harnessing the power of an electronic document management system is key to optimizing your business’s organization and effectiveness. You may be surprised by the boost in efficiency that you get by being able to find, store, and organize documents easier. One study estimates that along with boosting employee productivity, a digital document management system can save up to 6,000 hours per year, equating to 2.4 full-time staff positions.

When your employees no longer have to track down paper copies or digital files stored across multiple platforms, they will save much more time by being able to easily find relevant documents stored on the internet regardless of their source.

Save financial resources

While you might think it would be expensive to swap to a new software system and instill new protocols, implementing a document management system will actually save you money and resources in the long run. Recent studies show that on average, the cost of labor to file one document is $20 while the average cost in labor to find one misfiled document is $120. Many companies will also offer a discount of 1% to 2% for early payment of an invoice. An electronic document workflow for approvals will help you meet the terms for these discounts.

How can Coordinated help you set up a document management system?

Our SmartDoc Document Management allows businesses to create, capture, store, manipulate, retrieve and circulate.

The built-in security system allows only authorized employees to access files and documents when they need them. Once documents are fully digitized, they can be properly indexed and stored. Electronically stored documents using our document management system can also be accessed from other electronic devices, including phones and tablets, making it easier for employees to work remotely and improve your business’s workflow.