We have listed five steps you need to follow to reduce paper consumption in the office and go digital:
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Strategy and analysis of the processes
Plan your deployment in the paperless office well. Take enough time to analyze the processes in your company. What must be available or kept in paper form? Which documents are sufficient in digital form?
Documents and information come from different sources You will most likely come across information that comes from different sources and in different formats. Some of it in digital form, stored in files or databases and some in the form of printed documents.
Time and personnel planning for the paperless office project
A quarter or 90 days is a reasonable timeframe to implement the actions needed to transition to the paperless office.
It is also a period that allows for a smooth transition. Quick fix solutions that force employees to make changes from one day to the next are usually short-lived. It is also possible in this way not to disrupt operations.
Basically, when switching to the paperless office with PaperOffice DMS, there is no need for a project team made up of several people.
In many SMEs, deducting these from their actual tasks is neither possible nor desirable. What makes sense, however, is to make at least one person with the authority to issue directives the CDO, the Chief Digital Officer. If you are not too keen on American abbreviations, you can appoint him or her as a paperless office project manager.
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Determination of the periods for the transition to the paperless office
Breaking the intended 90 days into smaller time periods has the purpose of being able to focus on each phase of the transition and to be able to reflect on the processes involved. In addition, successes in the changeover can be documented more easily. The employees get a better understanding of the measures and do not feel overwhelmed. At the same time, the goals must be communicated internally, which is in line with a mental change. How important this is has already been explained in the foreword.
It makes sense to divide the 90 days into three sections of 30 days each.
The first 30 days are used to analyze all processes that are to be converted from analog to digital.
In the second 30 days the PaperOffice DMS and the required hardware will be introduced, but initially only for training purposes and accompanying ongoing processes, if this arises.
The last 30 days have been taken up with making the process transition from analogue to digital, with questions from employees no doubt arising. One or the other incorrect operation is also possible, but this can be corrected at any time thanks to the hierarchical structure of PaperOffice DMS.
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Detect acquisition paths and determine data storage
In the first 30 days, the focus is now on examining the processes in which paper has played the main role so far. To do this, it is necessary to recognize the interfaces of external and internal communication in the company and to follow their life cycle, which can be there:
- Telephone calls (e.g. an order form that is then filled out)
- E-mail traffic (e.g. mail will be printed out for the next meeting)
- Letters
- Business customer visit (eg: see telephone calls)
- Accompanying documents
- Internal correspondence
The next thing to determine is when and where, in the case of electronic forms, the transition to printed paper takes place, as well as the path from paper to archiving or just to the wastebasket.
Design documents digitally from now on
From now on, do without paper as far as possible: meetings, minutes, incoming mail, outgoing invoices and notes can be created directly in PaperOffice. Tasks and workflows are also implemented digitally.
Digitize invoices and gradually implement paperless accounting
The issuing of invoices as such is also part of the paperless office, although not only to be seen in this context. Digitization and proper processing are a problem and must also be well planned and implemented.
Anyone who maintains their invoices digitally and also creates their digital bookkeeping recognizes greater potential for savings and can make the general accounting process more efficient.
Data Storage
If you've already decided that your physical files are now going to be digital files, the immediate question is where are you going to store those digital files. Will you store them in a database locally or on an external NAS device?
When switching to a paperless office, you should not skimp on one of the most important facets. Local data storage and use of NAS devices.
Or do you not want to have the data storage or the database in your company at all? In order to avoid fire, robbery, etc., however, using a cloud solution is out of the question for you for legal reasons. Then, of course, the solution of using the database on a dedicated server, which is assigned to you alone, is a very good solution.
The selection is big.
Lösung mit dem Einsatz der Datenbank auf einem dedizierten Server hat viele Vorteile
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Introduction of PaperOffice DMS plus hardware
After the software has been installed on the computers in the company, the hierarchy levels have been assigned and the NAS servers have been set up and networked, the software is trained.
There is no need for external (usually synonymous with "expensive") consultants. PaperOffice employees are of course available if required. The more than one million companies that work with PaperOffice DMS worldwide have so far gotten along very well with the detailed tutorials and videos or with the telephone advice on questions about PaperOffice DMS.
Most of the processes are self-explanatory and are accompanied by a very well laid out help menu. By the way, you don't have to be stubborn about sticking to the 30 days. If everyone involved in the changeover from analog to digital is of the opinion that it will work, the process can be shortened as desired.
Folder structure
A meaningful folder structure is important so that you can easily find yourself after the changeover. Easily organize your digital folder structure according to your existing "real" folder structure.
Rely on automation
Thanks to the intelligent AI recognition, you can recognize important document data in the document, extract it and use it for document keywording. This saves time and therefore money.
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Complete the transition to the paperless office
The last 30 days (or less) start and the employees finish the education and training phase. E-mails are no longer printed out, but saved.
Use workflows and stamps
Documents and emails can be accessed, edited and made available to other employees at any time via the workflow function in PaperOffice DMS. Freight documents from deliveries or incoming letters are digitized using a scanner or a cell phone cam and converted into text documents using PaperOffice's OCR software.
The stamp function enables various workflows to be triggered and further actions to be carried out. Dynamic variables can be added to stamps and even email notifications are automatically sent upon use.
Don't forget to backup
There is only one central storage with a backup function. The question never arises again as to which employee has a specific document stored on his or her computer and how to get to it because he or she is on vacation and is unavailable.
A data encryption method that is also used by the US military. The currently popular and lucrative game of hackers with ransomware bounces off PaperOffice.
Stay consistent: The beginning is always difficult, because processes that have been rehearsed for years are new for the time being. Don't fall back into the old pattern.
Stay consistent and experience the paperless office.
The Ultimate 5-Step Guide
Tip
We have created the ultimate 5-step guide to going paperless and digitizing your business as a downloadable document, detailing each 5 steps and how long it takes:
The ultimate 5-step guide to the paperless office - how to maximize your company's performance in just 3 months
Interim conclusion 2 / 3
With the right software, a paperless office means no extra work!
All that is really needed is some software
- Automate the receipt of invoices completely by means of personalized e-mails, if invoices are available digitally
- In the case of paper invoices, thanks to the scanner integrity, they can be automatically captured by batch scanning
- Index and read out scanned documents
- and the most important thing: can automatically store digital and scanned documents depending on their content!
And avoid this common mistake
In any case, make sure that your software choice falls on a DMS with which you can carry out the automatic recording (e.g. directory monitoring) and the teaching of the documents YOURSELF in order not to step into an uncontrollable cost trap and not be dependent on the manufacturer to be!
