Financial Work Going Paperless Brings Big Benefits

Some businesses view it as an unnecessary stress to adapt to modern technology to increase electronic workflow in their offices – these same people spend 30 percent of their time rifling around filing cabinets to find a single piece of information, are constantly faced with the threat of malfunctioning copy machines and printers and always risk the loss of a critical document. Document management software is the way of the future and the longer a small business resists improving its efficiency by adopting it, the higher the risk becomes that it will quickly fall behind the curve of the competition.

Paperless document management offers financial security

An area where electronic document imaging is especially invaluable is with financial documents – as these items especially tend to contain personal information and are accessed relatively frequently by businesses, having a more secure, easily organized system can’t be undervalued.

In fact, financial advisors themselves have been adopting paperless systems to streamline their workflow and cut down on the high volume of paper that was previously used, taking up a lot of valuable office space and employees’ time. Industry blog BlueLeaf released an article detailing a number of advisors who decided to transition their businesses to paperless, some after decades in the industry. Writer Carolyn McRae spoke to Australian financial worker Chal Daniels about why document management software improved his organization’s efficiency.

“According to Chal, going paperless requires brain power as well as computer power,” McRae detailed. “For example, he suggests other advisors who are trying to wrap their minds around paperless file storing to ‘think about setting up a filing system that mirrors how you organized the drawers of your file cabinets.'”

Other financial advisors cite additional positive benefits of paperless document management including a reduced impact on the environment and becoming a thought leader in your business’s field – once the competition notices how much more effective your office has become, they’re likely to follow suit.

Keeping important information organized and secure

Whether you’re in finance or merely store financial documents as a part of your business, there’s no doubt that document management software increases the security of your data. While file cabinets are constantly at risk of being damaged if the building they are stored in suffers an accident, information stored in the cloud can survive anything that your office cannot. In addition, a password protected document is far more secure than a piece of paper that can be accessed with a mere lockpick or other simple device.

What’s more, organization becomes worlds easier with invoice automation and other services – small businesses can use customizable systems to make documents that used to be buried deep in a drawer highly searchable. Blogger J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly shared his technique for keeping financial documents as simple as receipts paperless and his workspace clutter-free.

“When I receive any other paper item, such as a bank statement, I immediately scan it and convert it to PDF,” he said in the piece.

It really can be that easy – you can improve your electronic workflow exponentially by making the decision to go paperless.