There are a lot of people who don't like change. In a business sense, this can be a scary, unknown development, so a number of owners try to avoid change like the plague. After all, why alter a good thing? If the company is doing well and chugging along, leaders might not want to mess with the recipe for success.
But what if the alternative and possibilities that go along with making a big change in the office could bring even greater returns and more glory to the business? This is what leaders considering making the switch to electronic workflow have to think about. Sure, maybe their legacy tangible records system works fine and staffers can get by sifting through filing cabinets in order to find specific client documents, but going paperless could make the company increasingly productive and efficient.
In fact, the situation might be even more dire. Hanging onto older paper-filing technologies just for the sake of not implementing change might be doing much more harm than good.
Slowing sales significantly
According to Business 2 Community, keeping paper involved in invoicing is actually significantly hindering the sales cycle. Consider all of the elements that go into sending out paper bills to clients: gathering data manually, making sure it reaches its destination in the office, placing it into databases, and then sending out the bill, which is a waiting game in itself. As the news provider reported, this can take anywhere from days to weeks, even if email is incorporated.
Going paperless, however, and installing a system of invoice automation can make a massive difference on the productivity and bottom-line within a business. Time won't be wasted filling out forms - all of that is done immediately and the invoice can be completed and sent out that much quicker.
The monetary factor
Perhaps one of the biggest reasons that corporations go paperless by adopting electronic document management software is that it is cost-effective. Think of all the things you'll never have to invest in again: paper reams, ink cartridges, handymen to fix malfunctioning printers and so on.
Comparatively, it's easy to see how businesses lose money by grasping onto their legacy systems, though it's a little more difficult to understand why. However, company leaders need to realize that they're also losing money because of wasted hours spent entering data into digital landscapes. Business 2 Community estimated that firms spend between $20,000 and $30,000 annually on such processes, a cost that could be almost entirely eliminated in a paperless system. [+]
Opening the door for loss
Other than the financial and time losses businesses are experiencing by staying true to their paper-full systems in the office, they're also risking the actual, physical loss of important documents. It's happened to all of us at one time or another, we've thrown away a piece of paper we've really needed or filed it in the wrong place. This can cause a lot of confusion, but when business transactions and audits are added into the mix, it can have much longer-lasting and more serious consequences.
This then leads to another advantage of going digital - you can use keywords to scan documents that are saved within the platform. This can save a lot of time, effort and ultimately trouble when compared to the paper system. Especially if something's been filed in the wrong folder or cabinet, it can be very tough to find the right record and take a lot of time out of an otherwise busy day. On the other hand, even if something was misfiled digitally, it's still searchable via the online system.
Going paperless just makes good business sense.
by PapeSave
The post You Could Be Losing Money by Not Going Paperless! appeared first on ERP Software Blog.
