Advantages of Using Less Paper

The concept of a paperless office has been around for decades, but it has always been more of an ideal than a fully realized achievement. While many companies want to go paperless and take advantage of the many benefits it can bring, very few have actually done it.
A report from Margolis said that just 18 percent of companies have made the transition to paperless processes. That same report stated that another 30 percent of companies thought they could make the jump in 2015, showing that there is an increased appetite for moving into the paperless world. However those figures show that 50 percent of companies don’t feel the time is right to transition to paperless, and that could show a lack of understanding of all the ways paperless processes can benefit a business.

Use less space

At paper-heavy businesses like law firms and accountants, much of the office space can be given over to filing cabinets and other methods of manual document storage. For those businesses, that is extra space they have to lease and pay for that isn’t strictly necessary. Transitioning to an electronic document workflow and electronic document storage could help companies ditch rows and rows of filing cabinets, meaning that they could downsize their office, allowing them to spend less on rent.

Mailing costs

A paperless business is a business that has its documents stored electronically. With documents stored in electronic form, it becomes extremely simple to ship them to where they need to be via electronic means as well. Clients can be emailed or faxed, and internal documents can be shared over the cloud on a company’s internal server, cutting costs for shipping and mailing to almost nothing.

Easy handling

Documents that are electronically filed are less likely to get lost than manually filed ones. Electronic systems don’t misfile client records out of alphabetical order or simply place them in the wrong folder; the system works much better. Even if paper documents are properly filed, finding a document in a filing cabinet or other manual system is much more time consuming than calling up that same document in an electronic system.

Remote work

Electronic document filing opens the possibility that employees can work remotely. If a company provides remote access to its pertinent documents via the internet, employees can work from home or in the field with clients with equal ease. This improves employee efficiency and morale; in fact, according to Forbes, offering work-life flexibility is a great way to recruit and retain talent.

Enhanced image

A paperless workflow enhances the image of your company. Not only is it better for the environment, which can burnish your reputation in the eyes of your greener clients, but it makes your company appear to be on the cutting edge of technology. Both of these things can help improve a company’s reputation in the eyes of its clients, which can lead to more referrals and more business.