A lot of people think that “going green” and “paperless office” are some kind of passing fad. Small companies are more skeptical about these concepts. However, these are much more than concepts. It is as important to create a paper-free environment, as it is to use electricity-saving gadgets. Just as electricity gadgets help you cut your bill; a paperless office helps you save a lot of overhead costs. Don’t believe it? Let’s look at the stats.
The environmental impact of paper and its production on the environment is tremendous. Here are a few interesting facts.
According to The World Counts, the global annual production of paper and cardboard is 420 million tons equating to two sheets of paper for everyone on Earth every single hour. Not really a paperless society yet. It is predicted that the demand for paper is expected to double by 2030.
According to the statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency, a typical employee uses 10,000 sheets of paper annually. Now if you multiply the total number of paper sheets by the average cost of paper, you will realize that your employee spends $1000 on paper alone. Even if you are a small business firm with 50 employees, you spend $50,000 every year on paper. Don’t forget the fact that out of all the stationery and office supplies, companies spend the most on paper.
Paper is not the only cost you bear, you also have to bear costs such as printing ink, storage space for paper files, paper shredder, printer maintenance, and other overhead expenses. A typical office worker produces 160 kilograms of paper waste, 45% of the paper printed in offices ends up trashed by the end of the day.
A typical employee spends 30-40% of their time looking for information locked in email and filing cabinets.
Although we can acknowledge that paper might be useful in some situations, the benefits of switching to a paperless office are indisputable. Read on to get a fair idea about the 10 benefits of having a zero-paper office.
The benefits of a paperless system
Docsvault’s comprehensive document management solution makes it easier than ever to make the switch to a paperless office.
1. Digitizes Your Paper Documents and Files
Paperless document management can help you to create digitized files and convert into a completely clutter-free, paperless office. You can store, manage and secure your existing paper documents and electronic files without occupying extra storage space, making you more productive and efficient, but more on this later.
2. Increases Efficiency in Filing System
An employee spends considerable time filing paper documents and retrieving them when needed. Our paperless document management software, Docsvault, takes out the need for manually filing paper documents and replaces it with a simple auto-filing method.
3. Improves Productivity
Organizing and managing documents in a centralized repository come with advanced search functions, which means all your documents are instantly searchable. Whether you remember the date you created the file, the name of the author, or some text in the document, you can search the documents within seconds. This can improve the productivity of your employees by almost double as they get access to information quickly instead of poring over large files and folders.
4. Ensures Compliance and Security
You don’t have to worry about losing another document again or leaving sensitive information in the wrong hands.
A digital storage system can protect and track all activity on the files, so you’ll always know who has viewed the documents or made any modifications.
Our document management software comes with powerful document control features such as security, 2FA, audit trial, records retentions, and version control to maintain quality and compliance.
5. Speeds up the Approval Process
Your current business processes, such as document reviews and approvals, can be automated. You can create an automated paperless workflow to streamline work processes and reduce document turnaround time. Important documents can be signed online using digital signature to reduce paper waste during the approval process.
6. Promotes Flexibility
By switching to a paperless office, you can access your data at any time and from any location. Docsvault allows you to focus on your business goals and needs while providing flexibility to teams to access documents from anywhere. A paperless document management software makes it easier to search, share and store documents than ever before with properly indexed files and easy conventions.
7. Improves Collaboration Capabilities
Paperless document management system stores all documents, records, and other metadata information digitally in a centralized hub. This ensures that everyone in your team is on the same page, regardless of when or where they work. Instead of printing, marking up, scanning, and emailing, they can easily route digital documents, and web eForms, add comments, signature, and take decisions on shared digital documents, reducing errors, and speeding up collaboration.
Learn how to transition away from paper documents and go digital with Docsvault Digital Signature.
8. Back-up documents automatically
You can create an automatic periodic backup of all your documents and keep them in an external location or a bank safe and your data will be safe from system failure or natural calamities such as fire, floods, and earthquakes. You can be back up running in no time in case of a disaster by simply restoring your data seamlessly.
9. Saves Money
Small businesses have more pressure on cost-cutting than large companies and every dime matters to them. Files created digitally are easier to create, edit, share, and manage than paper documents, making your employees work smarter, not harder. Our software provides enormous cost and labor savings.
10. Reduces Future Environmental Impact
And last but not least, going green does make you feel good about yourself. Many companies are increasingly recognizing the environmental tree-saving benefits of going digital wherever possible. To some, the importance of a paperless office is not just about the business and workflow benefits, but also about being concerned about the environment and reducing consumption and waste as much as possible.
Switching to a paperless office wouldn’t necessarily eliminate paper from your workplace but transitioning your company’s business records from paper files to digital documents can take a lot of pain out of administrative responsibilities.
A paperless office simply takes efforts to minimize paper-based workflows and to use electronic documents. When you apply these principles to your business process, you will find there are lot of small changes that can bring big results down the line.