The Challenge of Converting to Digital Documents
Do you still do business on paper? If so, you’re not alone. As much as 80% of business processes still utilize paper, despite today’s technological advancements in electronic workflows and data management. Questions about return on investment, benefits, and utility may have you hesitating on going digital – but converting to a digital document workflow is an important decision for many businesses.
Benefits of Digital Documents
Paper is not only expensive, it can slow your business down. When you convert to digital documents and electronic workflows, you can take advantage of today’s newest technology to get the most out of your data. By going digital, you can see benefits including:
Lower overhead and storage costs
Improved productivity
Easier and more efficient searching
Improved collaboration
Improved ability to audit
Better security and easier regulatory compliance.
These factors combined typically equate to a positive return on investment for businesses, making it a smart financial decision to go digital. Though not all industries can go completely paper-free, taking any steps to eliminate paper can provide benefits.
How to Go Digital
To get the most benefit out of your digital conversion, it’s a good idea to convert paper documents to digital as close to their creation as possible. This means scanning customer forms upon receipt, or having information submitted digitally from the start. Once the information is digital, it can be forwarded to the appropriate applications, departments, and users, and organized for storage. By integrating it into a data management solution, your data can be more efficiently and thoroughly utilized both now and over time.
Many businesses start by using a method of document capture which only creates an image of the document, which can be stored and viewed digitally. However, the better method […]