Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of paper and electronic documents you had to handle at work? Well, most of us have, at some point! Now you no longer need to put up with that feeling nor with the ordeal of managing office files, thanks to electronic Document Management Systems.
What is a document management system?
A document management system is a solution that allows you to create, scan, store, retrieve, edit, share, email, fax and print your documents and do much more with them. It enables you to manage both electronic documents and scanned paper documents from a single location. Depending on the particular solution you decide to use, you can do any or all of these.
Benefits of using document management software
Any business decision that is likely to impact the workflow in an office and the employees’ response to it, demands careful thought before it is made. Managing office files digitally is an example of such a decision. Let us look at the benefits of choosing to manage office documents digitally:
Offices run on the rails of information. If the data you have at your disposal is not organized systematically, you time is wasted. When you manage your files electronically, you can organize them by folders, tags and document types, depending on the software you use. A typical solution would have quick and advanced search features to help you locate files faster.
Multiple users can access the document management software simultaneously, resulting in work getting done faster. If the solution has the built-in capability to work with a scanner, you can easily convert paper documents into digital files and even email them to your clients, thereby portraying you as an efficient firm to do business with.
If the system you choose is a desktop application, you generally have to buy it just once and use it forever. You can, of course, buy additional licenses as you need them. Vendors often provide free support and upgrades in the first year of purchase, making it very cost-effective overall.
Such desktop applications usually allow you to back up your documents to a secondary location which could be another computer on your network or even an online location; so you don’t lose your data in case of any disaster. Quickly retrieve all the backed up documents!
These are just some of the advantages of using electronic document management software. Deciding to switch to managing your files digitally could be one of the most important business decisions you could ever make.
