Go Green, Become More Effective with Document Management
by. Michelle Harbinak Shapiro
The recent annual celebrations and educational efforts supporting Earth Day show the fight for a clean environment continues. While you may have a forward-thinking environmental policy, is that enough when you repeatedly print out extensive loan packages and transport them 200 miles to headquarters?
That’s where document management, or enterprise content management (ECM), software comes in. The most obvious benefit of document management is that it decreases your dependency on paper. But it also offers numerous other benefits, including:
- Automating document retention
- Simplifying records management
- Responding to audit requests and legal concerns without hesitation
- Safeguarding sensitive customer, member or employee data
There are three key ways document management helps you achieve these goals while lessening your impact on the environment.
1. Reducing paper use
Deploying document management software dramatically reduces your reliance on paper. You simply scan all incoming paper mail, invoices and other documents. Your document management solution immediately archives the scanned information as digital images – like emails – in an easily accessible central location. Users then file, search, annotate, share and process these documents without ever reverting back to physical paper.
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