Sep. 02, 2024
As digitization increases, more and more businesses are going paperless, transitioning everything from bookkeeping and document storage to notarization and invoicing online. For some, it's the draw of saving time and money &#; moving from expensive and labor-intensive printing and storage processes to easy-to-use, affordable document management software. For others, it's the appeal of eliminating cumbersome filing cabinets and storage facilities. Others are in it for environmental reasons&#;saving about 10,000 sheets of paper per employee per year&#;while others want increased security or easily accessible documents for eSignature and online notarization.
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Whatever your organization's primary motivations for going paperless are, you will see an increase in efficiency and ease when all documents are digitized. And with a simpler and more intuitive system, you can be more efficient and better serve your customers.
You may still be wondering how your particular business would benefit from going paperless and how to manage the transition. Below are some simple reasons for going digital and some painless ways to achieve paperless status.
In a traditional paper-based office, teams spend valuable time printing, collating, and filing documents &#; not to mention searching for those documents when they need them again. Additionally, office managers spend a ton of money on paper, printers, storage, and appliance repairs. Switching to an online document storage system allows employees to share, store, and access documents entirely online &#; saving time and slashing budget.
If you're eco-conscious, going paperless is a great choice. Relying on printing uses reams of paper, which is carbon-intensive and contributes to deforestation and greenhouse gas production. Transitioning to the cloud saves paper and decreases your carbon footprint.
Chances are, your office has a lot of documents it needs to keep secure, whether medical records or legal proceedings. Paper records can be easily lost, damaged, or accessed by the wrong people. Opting for a digital document storage system can help keep your records secure from natural disasters and prying eyes.
Paper-based offices rely on cumbersome filing systems that are often difficult to navigate, making even preserved documents hard to access or share. Migrating to an online project management system not only preserves documents and important data, but it also organizes them in a way that allows teams to locate, digest, and share them easily.
Paperless systems centralize all documents and processes in one place, allowing employees to conduct all their business in a central location. Instead of needing access to a printer and distributing files of hard copies to employees, then filing the final document in a physical storage unit, going paperless allows teams to do all their essential work in just a few clicks.
Chances are, you're convinced of the perks of going paperless and want to dive right in. But embracing technology and going paperless can feel daunting &#; it can be difficult to know where to start. Below are seven simple ways your business can begin the transition to going paperless and capture the benefits of a digital workplace.
Set clear, escalating goals that transition your team step by step toward paperless. Most employees want to go paperless, but 47% of recent survey respondents said that lack of management initiative was getting in the way of progress. Bring your team in at the beginning to get buy-in and brainstorm easy steps you can take early in the transition, then make a plan to tackle the more difficult obstacles as you go. Include rewards for reaching goals, and remember to model the behavior you want to see by digitizing your own office space first.
It's not enough to simply scan and store your company's files. It's vital to be able to access, modify, and share them, too. That's why it's critical to invest in a document management system. Instead of a document "vault," a management system clearly labels, sorts, and stores documents in a way that is easy to access, so your files are always at your fingertips.
Instead of bulky filing cabinets or clunky hard drive storage approaches that take up too much space, opt for a cloud-based storage solution. This approach allows you to store all your documents in a central location that you can access from anywhere.
Transitioning to paperless goes far beyond digitizing and storing documents. It applies to everything you do as a business, from communicating with your clients to keeping track of customer service interactions. Invest in help desk technology, and social media software, and CRM services that can help you stay in constant communication with your clients &#; without the hassle of paper.
Your company likely has to routinely sign and store important documents, but now you can digitize that process, too. With cutting-edge online notarization software, you can sign and notarize documents online, then securely and digitally store them for retrieval at any time.
You never wanted to receive it in the first place &#; so why not eliminate it as part of your paperless effort? In many instances, you can reach out to the sender directly and ask to be removed from their mailing list. But if that's too cumbersome, you can also call the FTC and ask to stop junk mail in bulk.
You're doing your best to eliminate paper processes within your office. But don't forget to automate your business processes to eliminate paper coming in, too. Reach out to credit card companies, vendors, and utility companies and ask to receive bills entirely online.
One of the biggest deterrents to businesses embracing the digital transformation and going paperless is the concern over a secure, efficient way to sign, notarize and store important documents. With the Notarize platform, you can sign documents from anywhere, anytime, then store and access them from our secure platform &#; removing one of the key barriers to going paperless. Schedule a demo to learn more about how Notarize can help your business go paperless.
One thing that downsizing has taught me is that paper takes up a lot of space. So going paperless at home was a must for me, and now I&#;m going to share with you how to create a paperless home so that you can do the same!
If you&#;re anything like me, you have the best intentions for keeping your paperwork organized, but sometimes life gets in the way, and things go awry.
Suddenly you realize that the house has papers scattered all over the place with bills you need to pay, subscriptions you want to cancel but haven&#;t gotten around to yet, and just a bunch of papers you don&#;t really need or know how they came into the home to start with.
I honestly got tired of it all, so I decided to take a proactive approach by going paperless at home.
Overall, the hardest part of going paperless is the time it takes to scan the documents you need, and that really wasn&#;t difficult. It just didn&#;t happen in the blink of an eye. &#;
I was sent the Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W to assist me in this process, and it made everything seamless! I&#;ll share more about it in a moment.
One thing I know that changed the game was already having my paperwork decluttered and organized. I could just take a file and scan it into my digital organizing system, which saved a lot of time!
While it could be fun just to grab a scanner and get to work, I don&#;t recommend that!
Instead, I recommend you take the time to set things up to help the process be as efficient as possible.
Here is my step-by-step guide for going paperless, which I guarantee will make creating your own paperless home far easier and quicker! Plus, you&#;ll be more organized in the end so that you can actually find the documents you&#;ve digitized.
The first thing you need to do is gather every piece of paper in your home so that you know by the end of this process, your home will be completely paperless.
You need to gather everything from tax documents and receipts to kids&#; artwork and junk mail.
I&#;ve written a really awesome post about decluttering and organizing your paperwork, so I encourage you to go through that in this step.
Read it here >>> How to Organize Paperwork in Your Home The Easy Way!
Once you&#;ve completed this step, you&#;ll know exactly what to scan, toss, unsubscribe from, and most importantly, be one step closer to a paperless home!
Now that you know what papers you need to keep, it is time to create a digital space that organizes everything.
You can choose a cloud option like Google Drive or Dropbox, an external hard drive, or folders on your computer.
Regardless of what you choose, it is important to have a backup stored elsewhere, so choose at least two different options.
Depending on the papers you need to digitize, you could sort things in many different ways.
I personally suggest by year, then by what kind of document it is. This will make for the easiest access in the future.
Of course, your documents can vary greatly, but here are a few suggestions:
You may need all of these, just a few, or even different ones that I didn&#;t mention.
Contact us to discuss your requirements of paperless meetings. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.
The good news is that it is whatever works best for you.
I learned this step the hard way, so let me save you a lot of time by suggesting this step as a must in this process.
To prepare for scanning, organize your files in the order that your digital space is organized.
If you have files in ready to go, ensure the papers are in the same order as the subfiles you&#;ve created in your digital space.
From there, make sure you pair the same size of paper together. This will make scanning much more efficient because you can organize once and scan seamlessly. [Trust me, it makes a difference!]
I did a lot of research to ensure I found the best scanner on the market to make this process as easy as possible. I didn&#;t want any friction to keep me from keeping my home paperless.
The Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W is honestly the best there is, especially when you follow the steps I&#;ve laid out for you.
It scans double-sided papers as quickly as it scans single-sided papers. It doesn&#;t slow you down at all and ensures you get all the information stored properly.
The one thing I did notice that helps the most is making sure you scan one size of paper at a time. It is easy to add additional papers to the same document, so you won&#;t have a lot of files to save due to different paper sizes, which I appreciate so much!
For older tax receipts that I need to store, I am able to store all of them [regardless of paper size] in one file. While I hope to never need them, I have them all together in one place.
For more recent years, including my small business, I have also able to store things in a more itemized way that makes accessing them in the future quick and easy.
I share both of these methods that I used to show you that this scanner is diverse in its capabilities and will work great for whatever your circumstances are.
To lay things out simply about this scanner, here is a quick pro/con list
Check out the specific specs of the Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W
Honestly, that is the only con I have found, which honestly isn&#;t a concern when you have your papers sorted by size. It only takes a moment to adjust the arms from one size to the next.
Get your very own Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W scanner now!
Once you have a digital copy of your papers, there is no need to keep them.
UNLESS it is a Birth Certificate, Passport, another form of identification, property deed, or another form of paperwork, you are advised to keep the original copy. Consult with your professionals to ensure you keep what is actually necessary and let go of the rest.
The key to creating a paperless home is to take note of the papers in your toss pile to see how you can reduce them in the future.
Go through your entire toss pile and see what you can switch to digital and unsubscribe from altogether.
You&#;ll want to switch things like bills and statements to digital options like receiving them via .
For things you want to unsubscribe from altogether, make a separate pile and schedule a time to call and unsubscribe from them. Yes, it is time-consuming, but so is receiving these things in the mail and having to toss them constantly.
I&#;ve also shared an additional resource below for you to remove yourself from unwanted mailing lists.
Once you&#;ve gone through the initial process of learning how to create a paperless home, there are a few things you can do to ensure it stays this way.
While it is time-consuming to call everyone who sends you unwanted mail, it is worth it! This reduces the amount of mail that needs recycling before it ever enters the home.
Check out this article for more information about how to stop junk mail.
All of your bills and statements can be delivered via , so swap them all to paperless. You can create a folder within your emails for these emails so you don&#;t have to worry about finding them in the future.
Whether you need to scan on occasion or once a week to maintain a paperless home, creating a scanning system ensures you maintain things with ease.
My husband and I each have small businesses that require us to keep copies of receipts, so I have set up an inbox in my desk drawer to gather all the receipts. Then each time I do our bookkeeping, I scan the coordinating receipts into our system and toss the physical copies.
The best way to ensure as little paper comes into your home as possible is to constantly audit what you are bringing into your home.
I don&#;t suggest having a basket to store these things, but rather you do this every day.
While it may sound like a lot more work to do daily, it honestly only takes a moment and maybe a call or two.
The more consistent you are with it, the less time it will take. You may even get to a point where you don&#;t need to remove yourself from mailing lists for a few weeks or even months.
Instead of accepting freebies and fliers, take a photo of it. You can do the same with business cards.
There is no need to bring those papers into your home when you only need a few details that a photo can capture for you.
Now that you know how to create a paperless home, I encourage you to get started by ordering your own Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W scanner and going through the step-by-step process I&#;ve shared.
This system will truly change the way your home feels and will absolutely eliminate a HUGE source of clutter from your home!
I want to thank Epson for sending me their scanner to use in this process of going paperless in my home! I couldn&#;t have done it as successfully as I did without it.
I&#;d love to continue this conversation below in the comments! Tell me if you have a paperless home or if you plan to create a paperless home.
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