The impact of paper in the office is a massive one. You may think that such a little thing can’t add up to huge expenditure. Unfortunately, you’re wrong. According to US statistics, the average office worker prints 10,000 sheets of paper per year, and Canada is not far behind. Nearly 45 percent of that paper ends up in the trash bin. Now think about a big corporation that has hundreds of employees. The amount of money wasted on needless document printing will be serious.
Paperless business processes are the way of the future. Not only will they help you save money, such processes can be used to build the right sustainable brand. Are you considering a switch to paperless business processes? Here are some of the top ways in which this transition will help you save money.
Saving on Printing
Paperless document management solutions will help you save money on the purchase of paper itself. In addition, you’ll reduce printing-associated costs. The cost of paper and printing in the US office is set at approximately 80 dollars per employee. Things aren’t much different in Canada. With time, this amount will add up to a large sum, especially when a company experiences growth.
These numbers don’t include the cost of hardware purchase and printer maintenance. The more pages an office printer produces, the higher the maintenance cost is going to be. By eliminating printed documents that are for internal use (and even some of the documents shared with customers), you can cut on such expenditures or eliminate them altogether.
Saving on Document Security
Finding safe storage for printed documents can be an incredibly challenging task. The logistics and costs involved make such services unattainable for small and medium-sized companies. Paperless business processes have security features incorporated in the software solutions being used. Thus, companies can save massive amounts of money on safe document storage.
Not only will paperless business processes decrease the cost of security, they’ll also feature much more effective safety measures. Encryption and multiple levels of access can be used to create a hierarchy of information. In addition, such solutions will provide detailed logs about the people who have accessed and modified documents. Getting access to such data will simplify document management and make it easy to identify the culprit in the case of a problem.
Physical storage space is one of the most expensive services companies can opt for. Printed pages can take up one or even two rooms, depending on the size of the business. There’s no need to get a bigger office in order to store your documents there. You’ll be left needing a bigger space as your company expands.
The Cost of Document Distribution
Paperless business processes can help you save money in yet another way – by eliminating the need for physical document distribution. According to an InforIT report, every dollar spent on printing will contribute to six additional dollars dedicated to distribution. Manual filing, mailing costs and the acquisition of additional stationary can add up to a serious amount.
Going paperless makes it easy to share documents with clients, improve the cooperation between departments and access documents from just about every location. Such advancements eliminate document distribution costs and they also bring tons of convenience to the table.
The only expenditure you’ll have to plan in order to go paperless is the cost of the document management solution itself. The good news is that the market has many options to offer. These can be tailored effortlessly to the needs of different businesses, making such solutions incredibly affordable.