Companies have come to a new place in today’s business, where the executives must decide where paper plays a big part in their day to day processes and where being digital is more effective. For many it is more than going green, although that has its benefits, but the foremost reason is how much money will it save them month to month, year to year. From universities to corporations and small businesses to non-profits, the savings is noticeable enough to persuade leaders into a digital approach.
A report from Yale in 2011 claimed it “consumed 211,033 reams of paper – that’s enough paper, if laid end to end, to stretch three-quarters of the way around the earth.”* Many of that has changed as the University started a digital process so their paper waste has been reduced. Let’s look at where the savings will be discovered when you cut out paper from your business processes and incorporate a digital approach:
1. Printing Service: If they aren’t needed to be more efficient, then cutting printers and copiers out will put a huge decrease in your month to month spending. Even if you already own the equipment, the supplies used for printing (paper included) will still be savings to your bottom line.
2. Mailing/Delivery: time spent on gaining office/department signatures physically or delivering important information can be streamlined into a secure business process using DocuWare.
3. Storage: A lot of costs eat into your profit line with a filing system. There is the purchase of the filing cabinets, the labor of paying someone to keep it organized, the filing supplies, the extra office space that can be used for a more effective purpose, and keeping it offsite only adds more headaches.
4. Disposing/Recycling: Let’s face it, you won’t want to keep every bit of information on everyone/thing forever. You’re going to eventually want to purge the useless material and most vendors charge a per-box fee to pick up the box and get rid of the contents securely.
These will incur fees over the years that could be avoided. Plus, with a paper-based system, it will take longer to accomplish one goal AND leaves lots of room for human errors. With a digital system, the entire process takes a third of the time and is traceable with less problems. If you’re interested in seeing a paperless process from start to finish, we recommend joining us for lunch at our next Lunch and Learn. However, if you’re not sure if going paperless is right for you, click here for the DocuWare ROI calculator. This calculator takes a few minutes to show you can save and when the DocuWare paperless system will pay for itself. Plus, you can save your findings as a PDF.
*Quote from “Yale Going Paperless to Save Money, Time, and Trees” https://its.yale.edu/news/yale-going-paperless-save-money-time-and-trees
