By Benoy Tamang, CEO of eFileCabinet
Are you looking to save money for your business? There are several ways you can go about saving money, but one of the best and easiest is to use document management software (DMS). This software allows you to save money in a number of critical ways. No matter what type of business you have, document management software is a crucial piece to cost savings. By using a paperless management system, you can save on the cost of storage, printing, postage, labor, time, and more.
Cost of Storage.
Using a paperless system eliminates the need for storage rooms and physical filing cabinets, allowing you to fill expensive office space with workers and equipment that actively bring value to your organization. Not only will you save money on the physical costs of maintaining and storing documents, you will also save on the cost of labor needed to manage the physical storage of documents, which is where the hefty expense really lies. This saves time and frees up your employees to do other revenue generating projects. Our clients report saving as much as $10,000 annually in freed up office space through the use of DMS.
Cost to Print and Copy.
The cost of toner, paper, carbon copies, and copy machine and printer maintenance can add up quickly, but is often unnoticed and simply accepted as an unavoidable part of running a business. These expenses, though, are no longer necessary. By eliminating the need for things like making multiple copies of a single document and printing every document, you will save substantially in time as well as the physical costs. There is also a labor cost associated with these tasks that can be saved and allocated to revenue generating projects. Our clients report reducing printer costs by 43% and office supply costs by 35% with DMS.
Cost in Labor.
With electronic management, the cost associated with filing, searching and maintaining a physical structure is eliminated. How much time does your company lose in man hours searching for lost or misplaced documents? What about deals lost or sacrificed because documents were filed improperly or misplaced? With DMS all documents can be accessed by all the authorized individuals in an organization no matter where they are located. No need to email, Fed-Ex or fax sensitive documents back and forth and trying to keep track of who has what version and adding corrections and additions to the document. In a DMS all files are accessible from any location over the web, and you can even access through mobile smart devices. Our clients say that DMS allows them to keep administrative costs below 12%.
Business Efficiency.
Tasks can be completed faster and in a timelier manner through workflows, which can be utilized to optimize efficiency. With automated workflows, files can be instantly passed to the right people, in the right order, for a specific action, and all with a secure portal that is industry compliant. Workflows can also lead to quicker payments from customers and lower purchasing costs from your vendors. Some of our clients have reduced their workflow processes by 80 steps and saved up to 80 hours of paid labor per week.
Security.
Documents can be locked down and permissions given to the appropriate individuals and departments through Role Based Securities. When an employee is terminated permissions can be immediately changed and locked out. No need to rekey cabinets and offices to protect your valuable data. Permissions can also be applied to individual documents within a cabinet or drawer for individuals or departments. Advanced permission settings can be changed quickly and intuitively, with minimal notice, as each situation dictates.
Disaster Recovery.
Electronic document management is perhaps the single most valuable measure to take in protecting your information. With DMS, all of your documents can be located off premise and backed up to geographical safe zones. No need to worry about an onsite theft, natural disaster, fire, flood or whatever worst case scenario you can imagine. Your server went down, and you find out it wasn’t really backing up the way you thought it was? No worries. With the right DMS there is no need to have special disaster recovery options for your paper archives and physical file system. It’s all taken care of for you, so that any potential disaster doesn’t interrupt your ability to conduct business as usual. Our clients who have had all their critical data saved because of DMS think this is priceless.
A DMS can add dollars to your bottom line, increase employee efficiency, and boost customer and employee satisfaction. DMS can help you free up resources to grow your business and increase profits by reducing the many costs of maintaining and managing physical documents.
Benoy Tamang is the CEO of Lehi, Utah based eFileCabinet, Inc. Founded in 2001, eFileCabinet helps SMB’s improve profitability with compliance-focused, paperless document management software that captures, stores, shares and manages data for paper-heavy businesses and departments.
