Paperless office: This is how digitization succeeds in the company

What 5 steps do you need to follow to reduce paper consumption in your office?

We have listed five steps you need to follow to reduce paper consumption in the office and go digital:

• 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.

  You may wish to scan and digitize all previous documents, or transition to a paperless office/system by a certain date, as well as use digital data to continue and work efficiently in the future. Use a multifunction printer/scanner for scanning and directory monitoring or mass archiving for large amounts of documents.

  The first option requires more time and resources. Ideally, you and your team will decide how to organize electronic files and set up a continuous scanning process step by step so that all future documents are digitized.

  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.

  It is important that the person concerned thoroughly familiarizes himself with the PaperOffice DMS.

  Due to the clearly structured structure of the software and the extensive and easy-to-understand tutorials and videos on every aspect, this is something that requires neither an IT degree nor external training. In addition, it can be done as "learning by doing" accompanying the first conversion measures.

• 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.

  At the end of the last 30 and thus also the 90 days, there is a fully integrated document management system that already allows an analysis at this point in time of how great the savings and advantages are and will be in the future.

• 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.

  Actually, the search for solutions also belongs in the section of the first 30 days. With the PaperOffice DMS document management and NAS hardware, integrated into the company network, all solutions are available to implement the transition from paper to digital.

Lösung mit dem Einsatz der Datenbank auf einem dedizierten Server hat viele Vorteile

• 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.

• 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!

Conclusion of digital transformation

For many companies, a modern and efficient paperless office is not an overnight achievement, but it is also not a utopia. To finally achieve digitization of your documents, you need to establish paper reduction policies and find solutions to get rid of everything you no longer need.

Document management software from PaperOffice can help you digitize documents and implement a paperless office. DMS solutions are complete solutions that offer a consistent infrastructure.
As a result, business processes are mapped transparently, workflows can be carried out digitally and all important information can be easily viewed.

Thanks to the DMS solutions, you are also able to process and store digital documents and content in an audit-proof manner, for example to save yourself trouble during company and tax audits.

Tips & tricks for a digital office

We have summarized 9 tips for you so that the paperless office actually works!

In short, it is about digitizing a wide variety of documents in the company, such as contracts, receipts, delivery notes, incoming invoices, i.e. everything that is on paper. In addition, not only the paper on the past, but also the future paper comes into question.

Communication is also a relevant partner in the paperless office. You don't have to worry legally, just pay attention to a couple of "subtleties". Certain documents, including the folder structure and in PDF format, can easily be handed over to the tax consultant or colleagues as a self-supporting archive - it's done with just a few mouse clicks.

The right document management software solves the analogue-digital problem

DMS stands for Document Management System and is intended to manage documents, especially digital documents, which includes the conversion from analogue to digital. PaperOffice DMS is such a system. Its range of functions is just as remarkable as its intuitively designed menu navigation, which only requires minor training. You don't need expensive consultants on site. Well-explained video tutorials on PaperOffice DMS can do this just as well and much cheaper, for free.

Scanning, OCR, archiving with automatic keywording, AI-controlled document merging, integrated search engine, workflow function, encryption with 1024Mbit, direct integration into MS Office, protection against ransomware, automated template creation, stamp function, task and note management.

These are a couple of the most important functions of PaperOffice DMS and as I said, neither you nor your employees have to complete an IT degree.

Interim conclusion 3/ 3

1. Contact a manufacturer with know-how and software that complies with GOBD (and also GDPR)!

2. There is no one suitable DMS software. Every DMS has its justification and ultimately the product has to fit the purpose.

3. Whether it's your own server, PaperOffice dedicated server in the data center of Strato AG in Berlin (Germany) or NAS - save yours NEVER document on third-party cloud storage which a) is not used on a dedicated basis and b) is not located in a safe country c) cannot be exported with one click

Tip

If you follow the advice and will use a NAS for in-house secure document storage - PaperOffice is not only perfect for this, but is even the only official DMS for the largest NAS manufacturer in the world - QNAP www.qnap.com/PaperOffice:

PaperOffice is the world's only and exclusively authorized document management system for all QNAP NAS devices.