What’s keeping you from going paperless?

June 13, 2013

We have written many times about the "paperless office" and the multitude of advantages that accompany having all information digitized can experience. These include more accessible information and ease of communicating with others physically far away, not to mention the saved paper, printing and toner costs. Even so, nearly all businesses use at least some paper documents, if not completely rely on them. So, what's keeping businesses back? A recent Business 2 Community article looked into what the typical fears of going paperless are, and whether these are reasonable. 

One challenge companies may have is security. While businesses may worry that having documents online makes them easier for others to find, with a strong document management system, this is not the case. With this system, "security is significantly increased, as document access control is managed via user roles and hierarchical permissions. For example, a specific group of workers can view a document but not edit it, while another group is allowed to read and modify this same document."

By working with a document scanning service and incorporating a records management system into a workplace, employers can keep track of all information to know that only those allowed can view documents, as opposed to paper, which can't prevent employees from seeing. 

Additionally, he said, most offices believe having a paperless office has no paper at all. Instead, work to simply reduce the amount of paper, not necessarily eliminate it. This way, companies can achieve some of the benefits of having a paperless office, including lower printing costs, while still working their way to having a fully digital office.

Tab Service Company is a Chicago based company with over 53 years of experience as a data processing service provider.  We provide business with outsourcing solutions for document scanning services, data entry services and mailing/lettershop services.  As a SOC2-approved service organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.