So you can work on a proposal while you travel and your team can collaborate on creative copy for your next marketing campaign while everyone works from home. But many businesses have a long way to go before they become paperless. In this guide we’ll look at the benefits of digital documents, and how you can reduce your paperwork to help you run your business more efficiently. You must lead by example to make a successful transition to going paperless. Regardless of the new document management software and organization apps you implement, your employees need to see that you’re committed to the paperless cause. There are innate technology core competencies that employees and clients will need in order to successfully transition to a paperless operation.

Upskilling employees and clients

You can use it on your office computers, laptops, or even mobile devices. So it makes collaboration easier and eliminates the need for paper documents and presentation materials. In addition to offering digital files in various formats, Zoho Office Suite provides file storage. And you can even organize them into folders based on departments or client projects. The suite also provides secure file sharing for when you need to send documents to team members or clients. And it integrates with the huge array of other Zoho products, like those for CRM, online signatures, and social media management.

Keep your documents secure

This way, you can automate your company’s workflow, store paperless documents easily and implement digital signature tools from within the same platform. The paperless process needs to be easy and deliver tangible benefits — save time, save effort and save the environment. It’s a great way to reduce your company’s impact on the environment and improve your office’s overall organization. This tool can help horizontal analysis formula you go paperless by giving you an easy way to create, back up and store files. In addition to storing documents, Adobe Document Cloud Storage includes digital signature functionality.

Eliminate Junk Mail

BigMIND by Zoolz, Carbonite and IDrive are among the best cloud backup and storage solutions to consider. Research your options before choosing a platform to store and back up your data. Streamline your paperless transition while saving space and time and reducing waste. If you extend credit to customers, you’re going to need to invoice them at one point or another. Instead of sending paper invoices, you can switch to electronic invoices, saving you money on paper, envelopes, and postage.

1. And when you’re done sorting through your mail, you have to either throw it away, shred it, or file it.
2. Here’s a list of some of the most popular platforms and the services they deliver.
3. This will depend largely on how you redesign your paper-based workflows.
4. You likely also have plenty of files from clients, like contracts and communication records.

Going paperless basically means eliminating the use of paper documents. This usually involves trading those papers and receipts for digital files and receipts. For example, you might trade in all those tax papers for a cloud-based accounting software. And you may contact your utility companies to set up online billing instead of receiving paper statements. With paperless business systems, you don’t need to sort through mountains of paperwork to find documents.

If you’re involved in real estate transactions, for example, there will still be a lot of paperwork involved. But that could put a lot of stress on you and your employees, especially if you’re already busy. It makes more sense to focus on one area or department at cpa vs accountant a time. You will learn a lot from the first attempt, which will make it easier the next time. Once you’ve made the decision to reduce paper use, how long will it take?

Change your document management habits to go paperless.

Now what should you do with all those digital files and documents that once resided in your office filing cabinets? Some companies do store some items on their hard drives or on-premises servers. Cloud storage providers like Google Cloud, Dropbox, and BackBlaze let you access files from anywhere. There are options audit working papers that automatically backup files from your computer and allow you to sort documents into categories and set access and permissions.

You should aim to streamline and reduce the need to interact with physical documents as much as possible for everyone involved. For working with documents during collaborations, look for online PDF annotation tools, text editing tools, and document viewers. Also, ensure that the tools are universally compatible online, with mobile devices, and offer a desktop version. Cloud-based collaboration is only as effective as it is accessible.