Creating a Paperless Office Environment

• Posted on Jan 16, 2018
• |
• By Dhruv

Any business whether small or large can’t completely go paperless, the reason being there are some important documents such as contracts and other legal documents which they need to preserve anyhow. But now technology has made us more flexible and documents like bills, receipts, business cards can be scanned and stored digitally for later reference. Also, this documents can be shared online which saves time, as well as money.

With the latest technology and online apps, its possible to cut paper usage. Check out these simple tips to create paperless office:

#1. Scan bills and receipts with your smartphone:

If you have a scanner device, its great, you can take the first step towards a paperless office by scanning all bills and receipts. But if you don’t have one, don’t worry, you can just browse App Store download an app that will turn your smartphone into a scanner.

So next time you visit a restaurant, just use a smartphone to scan the invoice. Later on, you can arrange these images on your computer.

#2. Scan your business cards:

For a person who attends various events or workshops on a regular basis, then you definitely must be having a drawer full of business cards. Often we buy a folder to collect all the cards which received. And if we require any specific company’s card it becomes a cumbersome task. Now, there are few mobile apps available which can help you to scan those cards and store them in a digital format.

The most amazing thing about this app is that these apps use OCR technology and store it in a logical format. For example Phone 1, Phone 2, Address, Email, etc. This makes the process of importing these contacts in your phonebook or sharing it with other contact management application easy.

#3. Request paperless statements from banks:

Bank statements are the documents that we get every month in a paper format. Majority of the banks are nowadays started offering e-statements. You can opt for delivery of this statements to your email address by logging into your net-banking account. These banks sometimes reward their customers for opting email statement.

E-statements gives you more control and ease towards your statements as there is a chance of security risk.

#4. Ask your vendors to send invoices via email:

The most convenient way is to ask your vendor to send the invoice in a PDF format via email. This will help you to organise all the invoices properly on your computer and search them when needed. Similarly, if you are using an online accounting software, you will be able to email Purchase Orders or Invoices directly to your vendors and clients.

#5. Digitise internal documents:

Use and scanner to scan the documents and start converting paper documents in PDF. To begin with, you can start with the documents which you want to preserve for the future reference. Scan and convert all the old contracts, bills and any other documents which is there on your desk since ages.

#6. Share Documents online:

For sharing files between team-mates or clients, consider investing in document sharing sites like Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive. You can edit all the documents online and can share the documents with the colleagues.

Dropbox even lets you to request files from anyone that will be stored in a specific folder.

#7. Make printing difficult:

It is not easy to go paperless and that feet surely can’t be achieved on day one as it takes time to implement these steps. So, to avoid resistance from your team, make printing difficult for them. For example, deliberately reduce the number of printing sheets kept in the printer. Change printer setting to make it mandatory to print on both the sides.

You can limit the printer access to a small group of people. I’ve seen emails that contain “Save paper, Don’t print this mail” message in signatures to stop people from printing unnecessarily. Just come up with innovative methods like this to discourage printing.

 #8. Get rid of old technology:

Get rid of the old fax machines, as there are few businesses which still uses it. There are few practices which have to stop, like a receptionist using notebooks to record names, instead start using a laptop. Some offices still have those large cabinets wherein they store those box-shaped folders. So, scan those files and convert it into digital documents and save some space.

• Posted on Jan 16, 2018
• |
• By Dhruv
• |
• 0 Comments