Do You Need A Document Management Solution?
Every business has a document management challenge and every business has developed, over time, ways to cope with that challenge. Whether your current document management solution involves offices around the country filled with filing cabinets and armies of clerks, or as simple as stacks of cardboard boxes piled around the perimeter of your office, there are affordable, realistic, and functional solutions available to help.
To help you decide if your company has outgrown your current method of dealing with your document management challenge, here are five simple questions to assess your needs.
Q: Does filing, retrieving and storing paper documents consume human and monetary resources that could be better used elsewhere?
A: If you currently have staff members that are dealing with paper filing and duplication tasks whose time could be put to better use, then you are missing a major opportunity. It's not uncommon to be able to shift 2/3 of resources dedicated to paper handling to other tasks after implementing a solid document management system. On top of the time saved, a recent Price-Waterhouse study estimated average storage, cabinet, and paper costs to be a lifetime per-page cost of 25¢. Costs that are completely eliminated by going digital.
Q: Does your company have compliance standards or regulatory oversight that must be adhered to?
A: If you're a public company, Sarbanes-Oxley makes the answer an automatic yes. But even small and medium sized, privately owned, businesses face taxation, employment and other federal guidelines for document storage and security. Depending on your particular specialization, your business may also face one or more of a host of other rules and standards. More importantly, other studies indicate that 2-4% of all documents are misfiled and 7.5% end up completely lost, making the possibility of non-compliance high.
Q: Is there a gap between your paper information and your enterprise data?
A: Even after implementing business management systems like accounting and CRM, a huge portion of your corporate knowledge still exists only in paper form. Vendor invoices, bills, P.O.'s, quotes, fax orders, and packing slips (to mention a few) are still filed, duplicated, passed around, and sometimes lost. Many businesses also have repositories of technical information or historical reports that are only available as paper at a single geographic location - not to mention the documents stored on desktop hard drives and personal filing cabinets. Ask any business affected by a fire, flood, or even theft, how important this is.
Q: Do you have paper-intensive processes that create delays or lack oversight?
A: Another study estimated that 90% of all paper documents passed around an organization on a daily basis are merely shuffled, and that no significant information is added or decisions made – sound familiar? It is also said that corporate professional staff spend 40-60% of their time processing paper. Ensuring that each step in a process is completed correctly before being passed on can cut processing time by as much as 50%. Add the efficiencies of completing these approvals online, without geographic barriers, and automating a few key processes can turn into a serious competitive advantage.
Q: Do you have multiple departments, sites or remote employees that need access to the same content?
A: If you have multiple sites or remote sales representatives, a document management solution can almost certainly increase collaboration and speed document processing. In some cases, the cost of physically sending packages between sites may pay for a significant portion of the system!
If you have answered yes to even one of these questions, then implementing a document management strategy for your business can streamline operations, encourage cooperation, and enforce security & compliance – giving your company a competitive advantage.
Want to find out more? Contact Laura Bennett at 856-262-8502 or info@psebusiness.com.
Sage Software, the Sage Software logos, and the Sage Software product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc., or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
PSE Business Solutions Inc., PO Box 322, Williamstown, NJ 08094 Phone:856-262-8502 Fax:856-262-8597
"Sage Software, the Sage Software logos, and the Sage Software product and service names mentioned herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sage Software, Inc., or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners." Copyright © 2006 PSE Business Solutions, Inc. All rights Reserved
