Going paperless involves reducing the amount of paper or physical documents you store and use in the workplace. Fortunately, technology has allowed these paper-based processes to be digitized to improve efficiency. Ideally, even complex operations such as signing contracts and contract creation can be automated in this digital age.
Therefore, as you plan to adopt more digital solutions, below is a comprehensive business guide to consider.
Ways To Create A Paperless Business
There are different ways for your business to go paperless and adopt digital solutions. Here are some of them:
- Use Internet Faxing
With online faxing, you can instantly convert emails to faxes and faxes to emails. Ideally, any file you can attach to an email can be faxed. That includes PDF files, scanned images, and Microsoft Word documents.
Internet faxing increases the accessibility and security of documents and is more convenient than traditional fax. Generally, by using internet faxing, you’ll be closer to going paperless.
The good thing is that online faxing is a hosted service. You won’t have to purchase or install fax servers, software, or modems. Instead, you’ll subscribe to a third-party online fax service like MyFax.com. They offer internet fax solutions tailored to your needs and a wide range of fax features. For example, you can fax from any platform via email, use MyFax mobile app, or fax archive. This way, you can perform tasks from anywhere and save time and money.
- Store Your Documents In The Cloud
Another efficient way to go paperless is to safely store your files on a cloud storage server instead of filing cabinets or folders. This way, team members can access vital documents online and work on them from anywhere, provided they have an internet connection.
Therefore, to accomplish this, you’ll have to find a cloud-based document storage service and use it to back up the documents stored on your device. Afterwards, you can save additional documents to the cloud.
- Sign Contracts Electronically
In the past, specific documents such as business contracts were kept in paper form because they required a wet signature to be valid. Also, both parties had to be available to sign. Luckily, with the introduction of electronic signatures, businesses can sign documents online from anywhere since electronic signatures are legally recognized as valid in many countries.
Electronic signatures eliminate the need to print documents, sign them using wet ink, scan, and email them back to the receiving party. Instead, you can manage any contract online before and after they’re signed.
- Find The Right Paperless Office Software
The type of paperless office software you’ll need depends on your line of business and the tasks you perform. For example, if you’re an accounting firm, you’d want a software to digitize payrolls, invoices, financial reports, and financial statement preparation.
On the other hand, in a legal setup, you can use a legal software solution such as AI contract review, contract automation, or contract management software. These digital tools automate and streamline paper-based operations into a paperless one, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency.
- Switch To Paper-free Internal Communications
You’d want to implement paper-free internal communications in the workplace to replace the manual approaches, such as in-person meetings or face-to-face communication, you previously used to communicate and allocate work. Luckily, with the development of communication software like Microsoft Teams and Slack, workers can chat online, share documents, and collaborate more effectively on tasks such as contract management.
Benefits Of Going Paperless
The following are some benefits of becoming a paperless office:
- It Ensures Privacy and Improved Document Security
Digital documents are more secure than physical files, which can be easily destroyed, lost, or manipulated. It’s protected with security mechanisms such as encryption, password protection, and two-factor authentication. Therefore, sensitive business information is less susceptible to destruction or manipulation.
- It Enables Workers to Collaborate on Tasks
With digitized documents, such as cloud-based files, workers can share documents online, edit, and collaborate on tasks in real time. Essentially, online contracts act as a single source of truth relied upon by every stakeholder in your organization.
- It’s More Economical
By digitizing documents, you can eliminate the high costs of buying paper, printers, and other office stationery, such as ink. Also, you won’t have to make expensive investments for a larger workstation that accommodates filing cabinets.
- It Reduces the Environmental Impact
Going paperless is good for the planet. Ideally, eliminating paper usage reduces the number of trees that should be cut down to manufacture paper. Also, it conserves the energy that would have been used during processing and transportation. Therefore, implementing this sustainability initiative contributes to a healthier environment.
- It Provides Greater Control Over Compliance and Upcoming Deadlines
With digitized processes, you can automatically track contract renewal dates, values, and obligations. In that case, you can stay on top of impending deadlines and avoid penalties or unexpected surcharges due to extended subscriptions.
Clearly, there’s a lot of value in switching to a paperless office. Therefore, you may want to move your contracts online to improve efficiency and increase productivity in your organization.
Conclusion
A paperless office encourages the use of digital documents. With the increased availability of online software, digital storage platforms, and mobile applications, paperless offices are becoming increasingly popular. Therefore, as you plan to digitize how you manage and store your business documents, the above are some guidelines to consider.