Is Document Management Right for Your Business?

Document Management is a component of Workflow Automation that simplifies the process of storing, routing, and retrieving documents in a secure environment. That means greater efficiency and cost savings for your organization.

To implement document management into your business, you will need to prepare your paper files for electronic document management. To establish the best way in organizing paper files into categories, your internal team will need to assess a categorizing system. By being on the same page, you and your team will know exactly where everything lives in the system.

Having a strategic document management solution can help in many ways including:

• Reduce Storage Space Requirements
• Enhance Security
• Improve Regulatory compliance
• Easier document retrieval
• Better collaboration capabilities
• Better back up and disaster recovery
• Increased Productivity

In the next chapter, we will discuss how the above benefits of implementing a document management system can help your organization achieve optimal efficiency and protection of assets.

Tackling the task of converting large mountains of paper documents into a digital form may be daunting. However, the time spent implementing an electronic document management system (DMS) provides businesses the ability to streamline workflow and scale business-critical processes. Here are the top benefits of implementing a document management system.

1. Reduced Storage Space

Commercial property costs are increasing, meaning the cost required to store paper documents is increasing. DMS can reduce the need for file cabinets and allow for additional office space to be used, while the paper documents that need to be kept as hard copies can often be stored in offsite vaults.

2. Enhanced Security 

Document security is essential for a business of any size. DMS provides control over sensitive documents and is controlled through the folder level for specified groups and individuals in your organization. DMS leaves an audit trail of those that viewed, edited, or accessed a document. Managed documents are highly traceable and are tagged for automatic alerts. 

3. Improved Regulatory Compliance

Compliance requirements for different types of documents can be complex. By not following these requirements, businesses can face fines, revoked licenses, and in some cases, criminal liability. Some federal and state regulatory compliance requirements like Sarbanes Oxley and HIPAA mandate that organizations follow security and privacy guidelines. To avoid the risk of non-compliance, document management systems records retention schedules and automate new documents for classification and storage. 

4. Easier Document Retrieval

Searching for documents is not only costly in time, but it's costly in money as well. Office works spend up to 40% of their day searching for printed documents. This time adds up to $20 in labor to file a document, $120 in labor to find a misfiled document, and $220 in labor to reproduce a lost document. All of these costs add up and restricts productivity, budget, and potential.

A document management system saves time. If you're searching for a word or key phrase in a document, DMS can retrieve the file you searching for. Additionally, DMS integrates with business applications to facilitate ease in assessing documents remotely.

5. Better Collaboration 

Working on a team requires the ability to quickly access shared content so team members can collaborate on topics of discussion. Documents captured from sources can be accessed from multiple locations, making sharing documents over email via the Internet - possible.

6. Better Backup and Disaster Recovery 

Any document management system should include a data backup and disaster recovery plan. With digital archiving as a backup, paper documents are protected from fire and floods. Documents stored in a DMS are highly traceable using a range of tracking criteria. Document tracking reduces the possibility of lost and misfiled documents. 

7. Increased Productivity

Implementing a DMS can directly correlate with increased productivity. Without having to worry about the long wait times in document retrieval your employees will feel relieved and increase client satisfaction. Aside from the benefits already listed, here is a shortlist of intangible advantages that a DMS offers businesses:

• Flexibility
• Competitiveness 
• Improved Client Relations
• Peace of Mind

With understanding the benefits of implementing a document management system you will be able to assess whether or not your business needs assistance in information management. 

Complete this workbook to identify any needs that document management solutions could meet, as well as opportunities to create efficiencies and realize ROI.

1. How does your business store and access documents today?

2. Are there consistent platforms, systems, tools, and/or policies for document storage and sharing across all departments?

3. How might the ability to assign varying permission levels to individual and/or groups of documents benefit your organization?

4. How do teams collaborate within your company? (Procedures, tools, frequency, etc.)

5. What would happen if an important document was modified, moved, deleted, or stolen?

6. Could you work more efficiently knowing that when a document is scanned, you will be able to find it quickly and easily weeks, months, or years later?

7. Can you securely access your documents from a mobile phone, tablet, or personal computer?

8. Does your organization have a disaster recovery plan in place? If so, does it include the documents employees work on and save to their devices locally?

9. Are there any regulatory compliance requirements related to document security, retention, and/or destruction to which your organization must adhere?

10. Have you ever permanently lost an important document?

• If so, why was the document lost?
• What were the consequences of losing said document?
• If not, what would happen if you did permanently lose an important document?

11. Does your organization utilize automated workflows?

• If not, have they ever considered it?
• If so, why wasn’t the project successful?

12. Which manual processes within your organization could be automated? (Data entry, invoice processing, document approval processes, HR/employee onboarding processes, etc.)

13. Would management like to have more transparent oversight into business-critical operations? (Such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, order processing, HR, etc.)

Let us show you how Document Management Solutions can help you create, implement and manage an effective information management and business process automation strategy to increase efficiency and ROI.