There’s a reason why modern businesses are adopting document management software in droves: It creates efficiencies, improves productivity, and simplifies workflows. As businesses migrate away from paper systems, they are enjoying the myriad benefits of document management. The proof is in the market’s growth: The document management industry is forecasted to grow from $3.59 billion in 2017 to 6.78 billion by 2023.
But how exactly does this solution simplify so many elements of a business’s operation? Below, we’ll explain:
Remove Steps from Document Processes
With your documents in a digital setting – either in the cloud or on your premises – you eliminate the steps involved in processing paperwork. The solution streamlines repetitive processes that used to be performed by humans, such as moving documents through various touch points. When documents have to physically land on various employees’ desks in order to make their way through a workflow, that paper can take forever to actually make it to the final touch point. In a paperless process, the digital document quickly moves through each touch point – eliminating damage risk as well.
You’ll also be able to simplify workflows that require adding steps. For example, if new information is introduced to a workflow, new decisions have to be made, or new documents are added, you can automate those processes within the software. Your team will not have to manually change the workflow and can instead keep focused on their core responsibilities.
Remove Risk Factors
A major reason businesses adopt document management is to remove the human risk factor from their workflows. Across the multiple touch points mentioned previously lies the risk for physical damage to documents or flat-out loss. Digitizing document processes eliminates the possibility that documents will experience damage or be lost.
It also removes error-based risk factors. With paper processes, you have to create new documents if originals end up with mistakes or other errors. Document management software simplifies the process of not only correcting mistakes but ensuring they don’t happen in the first place. With monitoring and tracking capabilities, the software allows only the right users to see, edit, and distribute certain documents – limiting the risk for them to end up in the wrong hands.
Simplify – and Improve – Compliance
There are several aspects to how document management simplifies compliance work:
- Eliminating those human risk factors is a crucial component of staying compliant. For businesses that need to abide by any industry regulations, document management simplifies their ability to quickly gather, tag, archive, and retrieve documentation. The solution allows businesses to see the whole lifecycle of one document, so both employees and auditors can know exactly who created it, what path it took, and where it ended up. Creating audit trails were once huge thorns in the side of any business faced with compliance audits, but document management streamlines that process.
- Since document management also speeds up document retrieval tenfold, your auditing process and other document-based requirements for keeping compliant don’t take as much time.
- Some businesses require long document retention schedules – another compliance-based need simplified by document management. Should your organization need to retain documents for 10 years, as an example, you won’t need to worry about paper getting stained, spotted, tarnished, or otherwise unreadable. Document management also eliminates the need for humans to remember where documents are stored, so a decade from now, you’ll be ready for any compliance-based need.
- Through the use of metadata in a document management system, businesses can classify data for audits and make the data easily retrievable. Both employees and auditors will have instant access to properly classified documents that simplify their retrieval requests and ultimately speed up your audit.
Integrate Systems
Paper-based processes don’t allow you to integrate data the way a digital document process does. With document management software, you’ll simplify the workflows that need to weave vendor and customer data together. You can create digital workflows that integrate with your existing systems, so the information you need from various departments is easily accessible.
Emerge Into the Next Generation of Business Efficiency With Document Management
With cloud-based or on-premise options for document management software, it’s a no-brainer way to simplify your business workflows and improve your overall productivity. Document management software is one of the main components of a quality management system and is crucial for businesses that want to become as efficient as possible. Today’s businesses can’t afford to stay on manual, repetitive workflows, and removing those paper processes is a significant step toward transforming digitally.
