The Many Benefits of Going Paperless – and Tips on How to Get There
Reading Time: 3 minutes When you are running a business, you are always on the lookout for things you can do to streamline processes, save time, cut back on clutter and reduce overhead. You can accomplish all of these goals in one fell swoop by transitioning to a paperless workplace.
Going Paperless Goes Beyond Going Green
At first blush, you might feel that going paperless has one key benefit: it is environmentally friendly. While it is definitely a solid “green” choice, there are a number of other pluses to pursuing a paperless company.
By opting out of paper copies of bills with your vendors and financial institutions, you will reduce the huge amount of mail that arrives to your office every day.
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You won’t have to open it, sort it and file it—these important documents will now show up in your inbox.
You will also notice a definite drop in clutter if you go paperless; instead of stacks of document boxes taking up space, you can store everything digitally. And if you have ever spent hours of valuable time going through some of these boxes to find a much-needed invoice or other document, you’ll be relieved to know that a paperless system will eliminate this arduous task.
By using a cloud-based filing system, you can organize everything and then access data quickly and easily from any device.
Going paperless can also help simplify your billing process. Rather than the tedious task of printing out and mailing paper invoices, you can email invoices to your customers.
You’ll save money on paper, envelopes and stamps—which is a major bonus—and you can use software like KiSSFLOW to help you create and track invoices.
Tips on Making the Transition to a Paperless Workplace
If you are looking around your company at the boxes of stored files and stacks of invoices and mail, the idea of going paperless may seem overwhelming.
Fortunately, you don’t have to make this change overnight. You can start by familiarizing yourself with cloud-based storage applications to store and send information. Ask some of your trusted colleagues if they already use these systems and ask them for any advice or tips.
Make it a policy to start scanning in any new paperwork that you receive to create digital files. Try to set aside a small amount of time every day to scan and store older paperwork that is sitting in storage, rather than trying to do it all at once.
Get creative in order to motivate your team to help you achieve this goal. Consider offering your employees some type of incentive if they use less paper—for example, a pizza party or Starbucks treat for the team who uses the least amount of copy paper over a week.
Also, to keep all of your sensitive cloud-stored data as safe as you can, invest in an online identity protection service. This kind of protection will keep an electronic eye on your information at all times, and immediately alert you if there is a problem.
It Can Be Easy to Be Green
Clearly, going paperless is a great idea—the reduction in clutter alone makes it an appealing option, combined with saving money and time.
By following the tips to transition to a paperless office and reminding yourself that you don’t have to do it all at once, you may find the process of using less paper to be a rewarding experience rather than a stressful one.
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