The concept of a paperless office has emerged ever since the invention of electronic documents and PDFs. Adobe aimed to create a document format that you can view on an operating system. Many offices are going paperless to be successful. Are you wondering how? Follow these tips and tricks below:
Make a Plan to Improve Company Culture
All attempts to change the way we work have to be implemented internally and from top to bottom. You will have to implement new business strategies or a broken culture that is unsuccessful. Going paperless may seem like a small effort. However, it is not about snipping fingers and requires the implementation of proper planning.
Build an Enablement Team
You may require an enablement team or person, depending on the size of the organization, who drives the change and conducts internal training. Going paperless requires you to digitize and partially automate processes. You will require people who lead by example and can train employees who may not be technically inclined. A paperless workplace needs a shared commitment to the transformation of employees.
Use Virtual Business Cards
With a virtual business card, you can make a paperless office by eradicating the requirement to print and distribute business cards. A virtual business card can help in tracking engagement with customers, networking on various platforms, arranging contacts, and removing clutter. You can share contact details via a virtual business card in many contactless methods.
Digitise Current Documents
Digitizing and storing all documents in a system is crucial to building a paperless workplace. With a lighter version of Document Management Software (DMS), you can create, share, manipulate, and store files. Enterprise Content Management (ECP) is a better solution that includes brand content, web pages, images, and files. When you make the right choice, you should ask yourself if you should get in the cloud or a local server. SMEs can easily move the cloud with a DMS because of its cost-effectiveness and minimum maintenance. A cloud service provider upgrades and resolves issues. Researching and deploying a DMS/ECM demands money and time.
Shift to Paperless Billing
Shifting to paperless billing makes your life simpler and saves money. Digitizing invoices prevents lost bills and late fees from getting forgotten and misplaced. You should strengthen security as paper bills expose you to theft in multiple ways. You can save time by getting every invoice in the right place in a few seconds. Many accounting programs help you to make invoices. Some accounting programs even allow you to do that directly via your CRM system.
Conduct Paperless Meetings
Paperless meetings, which require the use of a digital platform to decide and conduct meetings, have turned out to be common ever since COVID-19. All people couldn’t make the most of such paperless meetings yet. The planning stage is usually conducted offline or on paper, even though apps like Zoom offer full support in such a meeting. Both organizers and attendees can experience several benefits from the digital meetings.
An organizer can set up complicated agendas in minutes. All the participants stay updated with all the modifications in the current agenda. The organizer should make and upgrade the materials in an interactive ambiance. The attendees can earlier get all the meeting details and materials, stay updated with real-time changes, and easily access all the digitalized meeting notes.
Get New Fax Machines
People still use old fax machines for many reasons. If you are still using your old fax machine, you should get a new one immediately. Once you start using a new fax machine, you initiate sending and accepting faxes in a fully electronic format. You can compare the leading online fax services to choose the right solution suited to your requirements.
Switch to Paperless Tasks, Memos and Notes
Switching to paperless tasks, memos, and notes may seem simple, as document management software can now support multiple types of options to share information. It is a great opportunity to go for an external solution, even the free ones that take notes and create tasks with the option to collaborate with the team members. Such tools make it possible for you to work with team members in real time, finish your assignments, and synchronize notes across all your devices.
Use the Mobile Document Digitization Tool
You are likely to get exposed to paper usage even if you work in a paperless office environment. Paper consumption occurs when you are consistently communicating with clients, external vendors, and partners who have not gone paperless. One of the most effective approaches is to give a mobile document digitization tool to your staff, which works in a workplace setup. You should encourage them to use it. A mobile document digitization tool helps you scan documents with a good OCR function, which makes the scanned documents easily searchable.
Go for a Paperless Online Payment Provider
As you switch to a paperless online payment provider, you save time and complications for yourself. However, things get simpler for all the customers. Cardinity, PayPal, and Stripe are famous options that accept credit cards and other payment modes. The service fees tend to vary from 1.7% to 3% per transaction. Check those services to get started with digitizing receipts, expenditure reports, and many more.
Paperless Signatures
The printing, signing, scanning, mailing, and keeping of contracts may be one of the most tedious and futile loops ever to occur inside an office. Such activities tend to worsen, considering how convenient and easy this process has become to do automated online. You can always get multiple enterprise-level and lightweight options. Check what type of legislative obligations you require to consider when selecting solutions for digital and electronic signatures.
The Bottom Line
Transforming to a paperless office can always help your organization to be successful. Follow these practical tips above to experience the maximum level of success. All the best!
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