Small Business Tech Tips

5 Tips to Start Saving Money and Resources
by Tara Glick | www.everonit.com

The concept of the paperless office is a great theory, but perfection is very difficult to achieve. High initial costs and complicated operational and process changes makes going paperless seem ridiculously unattainable. But hey, not everybody can be perfect. Instead of the paperless office, I would like to suggest the semi-paperless office. The semi-paperless office is a more realistic aspiration and is easy to implement in any business. Everyday I’d bet your company receives, prints, and sends out more paper than necessary. By converting some of this to an electronic format, you can reap the benefits of the paperless office—cost savings, better organization, and more productivity—without actually going paperless.

I found an interesting case study on the Atlanta based CPA firm, Habif, Arogeti & Wynne LLP, a company that succeeded in going paperless. When HA&W made the paperless shift in 1997, they were spending $40,000 a year on off-site storage, space and about 15% of their office was occupied by file cabinets. While they spent $250,000 in initial setup costs, within two years, the company was entirely paperless, and saved $190,000 a year and operating more efficiently.

While I’m not suggesting your company goes fully paperless, by studying other companies that did, you can determine what will work for your company. Below are some things you can do to make the semi-paperless transition easier and effective.

Where to begin – Determine what can be electronic

Some documents are clearly not a fit for electronic storage. Things that come in through the mail or require signatures are often easier to store in a filing cabinet. HA&W kept one filing cabinet in their office to hold these such documents. If a document starts in hard form, store it in hard form, and store electronic documents in electronic files. Many companies are now doing their billing and invoices electronically to save time and paper. Check with your customers to see if they would prefer these electronic versions and begin researching ways to conduct these business practices online.

Backing up your files will prevent semi-paperless disasters

Even if you are not storing all your files electronically, it is still important to back up your files to prevent data loss. Luckily, data backup should already be in place at your company so going semi-paperless should not require too many purchases or behavior changes.

Make sure you can find your files!

Just like your traditional filing cabinets, your electronic file folders need organization. If you can’t find a file once it’s been stored away, your semi-paperless system is virtually useless. With so many files saved on your computer, the search could be slow and extremely aggravating. Some recommended folders to include are: important letters, invoices to customers,and company information.

Technology investment will aid your transition

Aside from the aforementioned backup solution, your office may benefit from new hardware and Technology upgrades. If you are going to rely on your computers to save your important data, do you really want to rely on your run down server? You don’t necessarily need to make large purchases, but it is important to consider it when making the decision to reduce the paper in your office.

Slow down—gradual change is effective change

As with any business endeavor, this one requires careful planning and thought, not to mention patience of you and your company’s employees. It is also a good idea to establish a timeline to organize the process and get it going smoothly. By the end of the transition, many of your costs will have gone down, you will have saved time looking for lost papers, and you will be able to access all your company information without leaving your computer desk.

For more information about this article please contact Tara Glick.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 at 11:00 am and is filed under Small Business Management Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.