Paperless Office Improves Efficiency and Reduces Environmental Impact

When a company decides to move from a paper environment into a paperless environment, the company makes a big leap forward into improving the efficiency of its employees and the reduction of environmental impact. Not only that, the company will have also made a move to significantly reduce its operational costs.

A paperless office improves employee efficiency in many ways. In the human resources department, one HR personnel can easily manage the records of hundreds of personnel very efficiently. Employee records are in electronic format thus the HR personnel do not have to spend so much time in going through paper documents, filing them accordingly, or retrieving them.

When it comes to other departments, the efficiency of the employees is increased because they have a way to easily manage and track their workload. In a single screen, they can view all of the documents that they need to work on.

Efficiency is also increased because the documents are quickly routed to the concerned individuals, even if some individuals are in a remote location. An employee may be working in the field and still be informed of documents that they need to be aware of.

A paperless office greatly improves the productivity of each and every employee. Less time is spent on searching for records meaning more time can be spent working on the tasks required.

Another good reason to move to a paperless office is to reduce the environmental impact. In a paper environment, the environment is affected in so many ways. Our natural resources are consumed faster than we can develop them. More trees are cut down every year than planted. Forests around the world are disappearing at a startling pace.

The processing of paper and even the recycling of paper leaves chemical wastes that are sipped into the earth or routed into the rivers and oceans. The earth’s fresh water supply is greatly affected and so is the marine environment.

Many environmental disasters can be attributed to the use of paper. The move to a paperless office will significantly improve the condition of our environment. Recycling paper may help our environment but only to a limited extent.

One of the solutions to the environmental crisis that we are in today is to completely stop or significantly reduce our paper usage. A 100% paperless office may not be possible for many organizations, but a paper usage reduction of even 50% will greatly contribute to helping our environment.

Millions and even billions of dollars are wasted every year around the world due to the widespread usage of paper. The use of paper not only hurts our economy, but our environment as well. The more companies that move towards becoming a paperless office, the more we can help our environment. The fewer trees are cut down each year, the greater the chances are of improving the quality of air that we breathe and the quality of water that we drink every day. A simple move to a paperless office will help to improve our quality of life.

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• Going Paperless has some Real Advantages (docusoftpress.com)

Remote User Productivity with Document Management

In today’s business environment you would not often see a company that only has a single location. Limited markets mean limited revenues thus a company will usually have two or more locations where they operate. Even small to medium scale enterprises will have more than just one sales office. Large corporations will need offices scattered around the country or even around the world.

Having many areas of operations will mean that a company will be able to penetrate different markets. However, remote locations also mean a wide variety of challenges to a company. One of these challenges is document management.

A company with remote locations will have a wide variety of correspondence going back and forth from the main office and the remote location. Not so long ago, a company had to rely on couriers to deliver documents between the locations. Couriers are still being widely used today, but in this electronic age, many companies rely on electronic communications rather than couriers.

An essential part of electronic communication is document management. Without proper document management, electronic documents can easily disappear into cyber space. Important documents may inadvertently be deleted. Computers and hard drives may crash thereby losing all the important data that the hard drive contains.

The lack of an effective document management system greatly reduces employee productivity and may even be the cause of reduced revenues for the company.

In order for a document management system to increase productivity, it should be able to accurately track documents, track updates, automatically back-up documents, and provide adequate security.

One of the biggest concerns of an IT infrastructure is adequate security. The infrastructure must be secure enough to prevent hackers from tampering with the system and yet easily accessible to employees.

A document management system that has too many security levels may be very secured, but it could also affect productivity if employees need to take too much time in retrieving documents or saving documents in the system.

When implementing a document management system, especially for companies that have remote locations, security must be carefully balanced with employee productivity. In fact, the whole document management system must be focused on increasing productivity.

Employees, especially those at remote locations, must be able to quickly access the documents that they need. This includes searching for records and storing records.

Efficiency is the key to a document management system. Without a high level of efficiency, the system may prove to be a liability. The system must be efficient, not only in storing and retrieving documents, but also in security. This is an area where the IT departments need to carefully look at. Too much security and the system will not prove to be efficient. Too less security and the system will be opened to hackers.

IT departments need to closely work with the rest of the company to ensure that every employee is comfortable with the security measures in place and that these measures will not reduce their productivity. This could be a huge task for a company with several remote locations.

Information Risk Management

The development of technology has without a doubt improved the means wherein information is accessed, processed, stored, and retrieved. Today, information can be obtained from anywhere in the world and even on distant planets, processed and stored at a central location, and retrieved from another location within a matter of minutes.

However, with the means to readily access information improving, the risk to information security also increases. Information Risk Management is a system to which these risks are identified, classified, and protected against.

The first part in information risk management is to identify the threats to the information being protected. These threats could include:

Intentional Disclosure

This is when protected information is retrieved by an inside source and intentionally provided to unauthorised persons or organisations. This could be achieved by altering software or releasing access codes intentionally.

Unintentional Disclosure

Accidents do happen. Protected information may be leaked unintentionally to unauthorised persons or organisations.

Acts of Nature

Earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes and other acts of nature can potentially destroy information storage and processing equipment.

Once the threats have been identified, vulnerabilities also need to be found. Information can be vulnerable in so many different ways.

• Security procedures may not be clearly defined.
• A contingency plan may not be in place or if so, may not be distributed to affected sectors effectively.
• Not everybody in an organisation may be adequately trained in contingency measures.
• The system may lack back-up capabilities.
• Disaster recovery procedures may not be in place.
• The lack of alternate processing locations can also make the system vulnerable.

It is important in Information Risk Management to identify the threats and identify the possible vulnerabilities of the system. Once a deeper understanding of the risks is achieved, a plan to manage these risks can be formulated and implemented.

It is also imperative in Information Risk Management that the risks and vulnerabilities that are identified be communicated to the affected departments. This would usually mean all of the departments within an organisation. Managers need to be aware of the risks and vulnerabilities and so do every other personnel.

In fact, proper communication is the key to preventing many threats to information security. If everybody within the organisation is completely aware of the risks and how to minimize them, then managing the risks is a lot easier.

In many organisations it is the responsibility of the Information Technology (IT) department to manage the risks to information. However, in many cases, this responsibility may be outsourced in part or as a whole to an information security agency.

In a time where information can be easily accessed with the right technology, the risk of unauthorised access becomes greater. Before, information could only be accessed through wired connections. Now, wireless connectivity is widely available and this makes it more challenging to protect information on a network.

Electronic Data Management Systems need to be carefully scrutinized to ensure the protection of information that they process and store. Without the proper security measures in place, the risk of information falling into the wrong hands becomes greater.

 

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Accountants & the Role of Document Management System

In today’s business environment where the key to a successful business is to manage costs while increasing efficiency, document management software has become an essential tool to accomplish these goals. Accounting departments and accounting firms will benefit the most out of Document Management Systems and here are some of the reasons why.

Cost Reduction

Accounting departments rely heavily on paper to produce financial reports. In fact, a typical accounting department will take a good percentage of an organisation’s paper consumption.

The cost of paper has continuously risen over the years to a point that many companies are actively searching for methods to drastically reduce their paper consumption to reduce operational costs.

When dependence on paper is reduced, so will other costs directly related to its use. Storage costs, reproduction costs and delivery costs will be greatly reduced as well.

Compliance and Regulation

Regulations require organisations to be able to readily access records. With these records in electronic form, accounting departments and accounting firms improve their compliance to these regulations.

Increased Security

Security of their records has been a major concern for accounting departments. Document Management Systems provides different levels of security according to the permissions programmed into it.

Only a certain group of people are provided access to accounting records. Within this group, different levels of security can also be provided in accordance to the sensitivity of the information.

As an added security feature, electronic back-up copies of records can be frequently updated to ensure that data is protected under any circumstances.

Real-time Collaboration

Document Management Systems will enable different accountants to work on a single record simultaneously. This is particularly beneficial to organisations that have remote locations or even have different offices located around the globe.

Records are updated in real time so reports can be processed and presented in a more efficient manner.

Increased Productivity

It has been proven that Document Management Systems increases the productivity of accounting personnel. Much time and effort is wasted in accessing files in a paper environment.

With the efficiency of Document Management Systems in storing and retrieving records, the time required to access documentation is greatly reduced thereby improving the productivity of accounting personnel.

Many corporations around the world, regardless of size and industry, have started to rely heavily on using Document Management Systems for their accounting departments. The role of Document Management Systems in accounting is to greatly reduce costs and to improve the efficiency of accountants and other positions directly or indirectly affected by this department.

With Document Management Systems improving the efficiency of the accounting department as a whole, the efficiency of the entire organisation is improved as well. Other departments that require reports produced by the accounting department can have access to these reports in a matter of seconds.

Departments that require updated reports, especially for global corporations, can have access to updated reports whenever they require. With this type of efficiency, the performance of the entire company and even associated companies, are greatly improved.

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