Immediate Benefits from Digitizing

There are very few things in the business world that produce immediate benefits. Administrators tend to have to wait some time after launching new products before they go into the black after contending with manufacturers’ expenses, overhead charges, payroll, and other costs. Marketing is much the same way – it takes a while for metrics to prove a solid ROI.

This, interestingly, is not the case with electronic workflow. Sure, it can take a while for business leaders to learn the ropes with document management software and adopt best practices when actually digitizing, but the benefits that accompany the technology are recognized almost right after leveraging them.

If company leaders are on the fence about transferring their documents to the digital sphere, they should be aware of the immediate advantages that can be seen. This might not only convince them to move financial processes like invoicing and accounts receivable and payable online right away, but they will be able to enjoy cost savings, efficiency, and productivity increases, perhaps making the enterprises bigger competitors right away.

So what are these benefits? There are a number of advantages, but the most immediate ones are as follows:

Productivity

In many companies, as soon as mission-critical documents go online, employees can begin making edits to files, sharing records and working remotely, something that can greatly benefit workers from day one.

Outright also pointed out that files will be more easily found, which can help staffers cut a chunk of time that would have otherwise been spent searching through filing cabinets or tracking down a lost piece of paper. However, in digital systems, everything is searchable, so workers only have to type in a few keywords and the file they were looking for will be available right away. This can not only be valuable during a normal workday, but it is extremely helpful in the case of an audit or other phase of discovery.

Plus, the news source suggested that numerous employees can look at and make edits to the same document at one time, meaning that workers won’t have to meet up to collaborate or keep sending the paper back and forth for any changes that have to be made. Staff won’t have to wait around until one of their peers is done with a document before they can begin work on it.

Cost savings

Very rarely are cost savings immediately recognizable when new technologies are implemented in the office. That’s not the case with digitization. From the first day after launching the new electronic platform, companies will likely no longer have to continue investing in storage space, new filing cabinets, large volumes of reams of paper, ink cartridges, and other accessories associated with an office full of paper.

On top of that, Doc.It detailed that printing out only one hard copy can be unnecessarily expensive. The source said that for just one printed record, a company has to shell out money for paper, toner, ink, a printer, maintenance services for the printer involved, and other expenses.

By going paperless, the news outlet reported that a business can save around $500 annually per employee in supplies and increase the life of the printers still in the office for emergencies by around 200 percent.

This same sentiment goes for copiers, fax machines, scanners, and other pieces of hardware associated with paper files.

In another sense, businesses can save travel costs if various employees normally have to travel to share files or connect to sign invoices or other documents. The increases in man-hours would be an example of one benefit that would be seen more over time.