Sometimes it’s hard to decide which is worse: The cumbersome world of manual paper-based document systems or the privacy and security risks associated with electronic documents. With growing concerns about privacy and increased occurrences of cyber-attacks, you might lean towards sticking with your paper documents. However, the wiser choice is to introduce an electronic document management system. Your new system will help with digital document security and eliminate the inefficiencies of manual paper processes. Here we explain how an electronic document management system protects your business.
Access control is always an issue whether your document system is digitized or paper-based. Paper-based systems require a physical security system to limit who can access your paper files. Unfortunately, this requires a pretty pricey investment for state-of-the-art FOB access, password and role-based authorization management, security cameras, and more.
On the other hand, digital files stored randomly on different desktops across your enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and other storage hubs pose a security risk without an authentication process in place. However, incorporating an electronic document management system into the mix allows you to digitize paper records and create a single hub for your digital documents. As a result, you resolve everyday workflow and security challenges allowing you to:
You build authorizations into a secure document storage management system and create a safe, streamlined process based on employee roles.
Documents can fall under all kinds of compliance regulations, such as:
Regardless of the regulations you follow, an electronic document management system makes it easier to remain compliant in several ways:
Should you ever face legal issues, audits, or inspections, you are always prepared to prove you are 100% compliant with minimum sweat.
Paper is fragile. There’s no getting around this. Although you can take steps to protect paper documents, they are vulnerable to degradation. Also, flood, fire, and other disasters will damage paper beyond repair, leaving you sans your records. You can also face challenges with digital files without a backup. The answer is an electronic document management system. You can scan paper documents for a permanent record and back up all digital files daily, ready for recovery in the face of disaster.
Going digital provides backup to the nth degree, ideal for your scanned and existing digital documents. In addition, you will always have a safe digital infrastructure supporting your business so you remain resilient no matter what comes your way.
Creating a digital archive by scanning paper documents and integrating them with existing digital documents streamlines workflows. You no longer contend with common paper-related issues like “Who has the Smith file?” or coffee spills. Let’s not forget the disaster of not having a single document management system for digital records. When Bob decides to ghost quit, you won’t have to worry about the fact he has your critical files on his laptop when all your digital documents are stored in one place. Workflows are streamlined with digital document security in several ways:
Manual filing: With a highly secure document management system, you eliminate time-consuming manual processes retrieving paper documents. You can cut the search down from about 15 minutes to seconds and never have to refile a paper document again by taking the scan-to-zero route.
Lost documents: Whether it is a digital file saved by the wrong name, or a paper file sitting on Marge’s desk while she’s on vacation, a secure system keeps everything in one safe place, ready to search and use when needed. That means no more delays related to the loss of documents.
Consistency: Using indexing and meta tag naming conventions when paper files are scanned allows you to integrate digitized files into your document management system. Saving documents with a consistent format makes them easy to search and find. Introducing file-saving protocols for digital files also ensures documents are always easy to search, saving time.
Secure file sharing: You can improve collaboration with secure file sharing. This makes it easy for teams to edit documents, automate approvals and maintain a single version of documents, speeding up processes and ensuring everyone is working from the most recent versions.
When document access and editing are a free-for-all, it isn’t easy to track accountability. This puts your business at risk should unauthorized non-compliant changes be made. Also, from a legal point of view, should you need to track who did what and where, your document management system provides an audit trail with dates, times, and access trails so you always know who is responsible. As a result, you can take corrective or disciplinary action to resolve the issues.
A secure document storage system naturally creates consistent security procedures. Because documents can only be accessed in a specific way based on the protocols you introduce, everyone follows the same guidelines when accessing documents. This reduces mistakes and ensures that records are only accessed by those with the authority to do so. It also ensures someone in marketing can’t change a document in accounting because they have read-only authority. You’ll have a happier team when everyone follows the “rules.”
An electronic document management system is an affordable solution to ramp up your document security. You can protect your business by improving compliance, creating a secure hub with role-based authorization, and streamlining workflows with consistent security procedures.
MES helps companies across the country find effective document storage solutions to improve security. Please contact us today for a customized project quote or to discuss the benefits of document scanning and document management systems.