Is your office still drowning in paperwork? Many of today’s businesses no longer have huge stacks of filing cabinets, but you can still find yourself struggling with paper every day. Paper is annoying in a number of ways, and it’s not great if you’re trying to run a green business. It takes up space, can easily be misplaced, and it’s easy to damage. Keeping reams of paper organizes can be tough too. If you’ve had enough of it, there’s plenty that you can do to sort it out. Take a look at these tips for creating a paperless office.
Get Digital Documents Organized
Making your documents digital is obviously a smart way to start getting rid of paper in your office. However, if you have high volumes of paperwork, you might worry about keeping it all organized. With the right document management system, you can stay on top of everything. The right software will help you to capture paper documents, and store and organize your digital files. Many systems integrate with various other applications, such as customer relationship management tools. You can search and retrieve anything when you need it, and allow the relevant people to have access to necessary documents.
Give Staff Mobile Devices
Gone are the days when we need to print out and photocopy packets of information for meetings. No one needs to have a pile of paper in front of them if they have a mobile device that they can use instead. If everyone has a tablet or laptop, documents and files can be shared with anyone who needs them. They can then carry around hundreds of important documents on their device and have access to them whenever they need it. Mobile devices can be useful for people working out in the field too, doing away with the need for paperwork.
Have Custom Apps Made for Generating Documents
Some businesses still rely on custom-printed documents and templates. For example, you might use invoices with your logo or paper with custom letterheads. However, it’s not necessary to use these when you have digital tools to use instead. With a custom-made app, you can generate things like invoices, forms and other documents even when out and about. Then the pre-formatted document can be saved and sent to anyone who needs it. Not only does this cut down on paper but it could save a lot of time too.
Train and Incentivize Staff
It’s also important to get your staff on board if you want to reduce paper use for your business. You might not want to get rid of equipment like printers and photocopiers completely because they are sometimes necessary. However, you then need to make sure employees don’t use them all the time just because they’re available. Incentivizing staff to only use paper when necessary and training them to use digital alternatives will help to encourage them to give paper a miss.
Making your business entirely paperless may not be possible, but you can remove a large amount of it. There’s no need to be completely reliant on paper.