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By Martin Straub , CPA, CITP
Are your filing cabinets overflowing? Can you find the important documents you need mixed among all the others? Is filing the last chore that gets done in your office? Answer yes to any of these questions and you and your office may be a good candidate to move towards a “paperless office”.
What is a “paperless office”? First, let’s get one thing straight – there really is no such thing as a completely paperless office. A much better term (but one that doesn’t sound nearly as impressive) is a “less paper office”. For most organizations, the goal of implementing paperless office practices should not be to entirely eliminate the use of paper, but to become more efficient by storing important documents, such as invoices, bills, and client records in an organized, electronic filing system. The list of potential benefits from such a system is significant. Instead of having to hunt for an important document or tell a customer you’ll need to call them back, documents are readily available from your computer. Need to access something while away from the office? A paperless system provides that option. What about retention? Setup properly, a paperless system can help automate the process of purging old documents. Other benefits include space savings, being able to provide managed access to important documents across your entire organization and improved disaster planning.
Paperless office was first promoted for professional service firms such as accountants and lawyers which generate tremendous amounts of paper files. However, today’s technologies make it attainable and cost effective for even the smallest business or home office user to adopt paperless techniques.
One of the most important considerations in moving towards paperless is planning. Without a proper plan (what documents will be stored electronically?, will they be scanned?, how will they be organized?, what is their retention?, etc) a paperless system is no better than your current system. Additionally, if you ask any organization that has implemented paperless practices, they’ll each tell you that the one of most important considerations wasn’t the technology, it was the change in procedures and process flow. Successfully adopting paperless practices requires assessing each part of your business that generates or receives paper records and determining how (or if) the process needs to change to obtain and retain documents in electronic form. You’ll also need to know how long you want to retain electronic documents and whether you plan to back-scan previously filed paper documents.
After considering processes, having the appropriate technology tools in place should be the next concern. In some cases, you’ll be able to work with existing vendors and clients to receive or generate more of your source documents in electronic form. For instance, many of your vendors are eager to send invoices and statements to you via email (after all, once they have their own paperless systems sending documents electronically saves them time and money). Nonetheless, you’ll still need a quality scanner, software to organize your documents, and a reliable server or storage system for all the electronic files you’ll soon be generating.
Scanner, software, and server options vary tremendously depending on the size of your organization and needs. However, there are a few common considerations. First of all, don’t scrimp on your scanner. It should have a sheet feeder and flat-bed option and be able to scan at least 300dpi. Multi-function units (printer, scanner, copiers) can work in some cases, but only if they are office-class machines. The multi-function units you’ll find at mass retailers like Costco and Office Depot are usually designed for home or small offices and fall short on the important features you’ll want to for hassle-free scanning. For dedicated scanners, I strongly suggest Canon or Fujitsu as both vendors have a long history of developing high quality scanners.
The software you use may depend on y our industry. In many cases, software vendors are beginning to integrate electronic document tools into their existing systems. For small businesses that use QuickBooks, some tremendous add-ons are available that allow you to scan and integrate your source documents directly into QuickBooks. If most of your important documents are related to your financial records, why have an entirely different filing system when you can store everything right within your accounting system? For more complex needs, stand-alone document management software might be more appropriate. While initially more time-consuming to implement, a stand-alone system will usually provide you with features not found elsewhere such as the ability to search across all of your documents, managed security, and automated retention scheduling.
Finally, don’t forget the importance of reliable storage and back-up planning. Once you make the move to paperless, your data storage needs will grow rapidly. Fortunately, storage has become very inexpensive with options to fit all budgets and business sizes. Regardless, make sure whatever storage system you adopt has some level of backup and redundancy.
Moving towards a less paper office is not a project to be undertaken lightly. However, with proper planning you and your business may soon be able to reap the benefits of having your important documents readily available electronically!
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