Why A Document Management System Is Necessary For Your Organization

Relying on an old-fashioned filing and paperwork cabin system might only add up to the workload. Moreover, in cases where you require a quick access, strolling through thousands of files might not be a good idea.  A good document management system on the other hand, not only helps you save your hard earned money and time, but also helps in keeping your data secure. It serves as an efficient way to store and track all the documents at one centralized location. Hence, a sound document management system helps improve an organization’s productivity in the following ways:-

Full control over documents:- 

Maintaining updated information and documents can be a big struggle, especially for large organizations.  As soon as a customer query comes which requires you to access an old data, you might waste a lot of time before being able to reply to the customer. This is where the document management system comes into use. It lets you keep a track of all your documents in an efficient manner. It also allows for uploading of information, managing it and updating to the latest versions without any hassle.

Enhanced productivity:- 

Owing to the easy uploading, editing, tracking and sharing function of document management system; there is enhanced productivity and efficiency in an organization.  The time which otherwise would have been spent in searching different data can be utilized in other important tasks. Hence, the employees become more productive, which in turn leads to better functioning of the company.

Improved Collaboration and Communication:-

With the help of an efficient document management services, collaborating and communicating even across geographic locations becomes an easy task. It allows multiple users to work on a single project without any hassle.  Moreover, you can even control who is to be given access to certain important data. This restriction feature helps you have more control over the data which is possible through an online workspace such as the intranet.

Low supply costs:- 

By investing in cloud computing, you save a lot of money which will be otherwise spent on office supplies such as paper and other related items. Moreover, while papers can undergo wear and tear drastically, such is not the case with document management system. You can print your documents whenever you want and online copies will remain the same with enhanced security.

Sustainable Choice:-

A document management system helps you maintain your reputation as a green company. It helps you eliminate thousands of papers, hence reducing your carbon footprint.

4 Benefits Of Document Imaging Or Scanning

Document imaging is basically the practice of using scanners or other special cameras to scan or take a picture of information contained on paper and microfilm. There are a lot of advantages of converting paper to digital files through the use of document imaging. 

If you’re still on the fence about going paperless, don't wait any longer because your business can reap a host of benefits. Here are 4 top reasons to use document imaging. 

Better Data Security and Staff Collaboration- 

Document scanning makes it really easy to share documents and collaborate on projects. You don’t need to reproduce information on paper and the staff in multiple locations can have access to as well as view electronic documents. Since protecting hard copy information is difficult, scanned documents can be encrypted, protected with a password and securely stored in the cloud. This way the users can track all file activity.  

Improved Customer Service and Disaster Recovery-

It can get very hard to provide consistent customer service if you have customers in more than one region. Document scanning helps you get important information to your clients much faster instead of constantly having to print and mail bills, invoice statements, and other things. Paper documents are vulnerable to certain damages like fire, floods, and other natural disasters. Fortunately, document imaging offers enhanced disaster recovery for your business as digital images can be backed up.  

More Time and Office Space- 

Using prime office real estate to store business records is costly so imaging your documents frees up office space and thus, can be used to generate more revenue for your company. More than thousands of files can be stored on just one single server instead of taking up space in bulky file cabinets. It takes about 35-37 minutes to find one paper file but document imaging services provide access to your organization so that files can be retrieved quickly and easily without any hard work.

Eco-Friendly- 

Document imaging isn’t just beneficial for your business but also the environment. The average office worker uses about 10,000 sheets of paper every single year. That means a ton of trees are being cut down in order to provide this. Even if a mere fraction of that paper ends up in the waste, it causes harm and damage to the environment. Document imaging greatly reduces paper consumption and helps provide a greener planet. 

History Of Digital Document Management Systems

During the start of the 80’s, various vendors started investing the development of software systems as managing paper-based documents was getting extremely difficult. The systems delved into not just documents that were printed and published but also the ones that consisted of photographs, prints etc. 

The phase of developers that came in post them, started writing a second and a little different type of system. This system had the capability of managing documents that were electronic in nature. These included all the files and documents that had been created on computers and could be stored in the local file systems of the users. The earliest electronic document management systems had the property of managing only propriety file types, or a limited number of file types. A few years later these systems were called document imaging systems. This is mainly because of their characteristic of capturing, storing, indexing and retrieving of image file formats. 

The next big development in the Digital Document Management systems world was that it could manage any type of file format and also be able to store it on the network. The applications could now run electronic documents, collaboration tools, security, workflow, and auditing capabilities altogether. 

These systems could help an organization with capturing faxes and forms, saving copies of the various documents in the form of images and storing image files in the repository for security and quick retrieval. 

EDM systems could later be differentiated on the basis of how they stored documents. You might have observed that some EDM systems store documents in file formats such as Microsoft Word or Excel, PDF i.e the native file formats. On the other hand, the second category of EDM systems stores files and documents in the format of HTML. 

Recently the systems that encompass cloud-hosted management software are preferred by companies. This is mainly because of how they simplify complexities and bring down maintenance costs on hardware.