Are you tired of seeing piles of paperwork? As technology advances, business establishments have realized that keeping paper documents is unnecessary. Some records fade over time, and paper is an avoidable expense. If your company is still keeping hard documents, then it may be a chance to upgrade.

11 Essential Steps To Create A Paperless Office

1. Digitize What You Need

Use modern technologies to handle the information that needs to be stored. If you are working in an architectural firm, for example, instead of using paper for the house layout or blueprint you can use an application that caters to digital drawings. Applications are a hassle-free way to handle erasures and alterations because you can delete lines or objects with the click of a button.

2. Use A Digital Signature

Signatures are essential in writing documents because it creates a document that looks trustworthy because it is coming from a known sender. Digital signatures are one of the key elements of any cryptographic protocol. Forgery and tampering can be easily detected if you have a digital signature, as well.

3. Manage Your Digital Documents

Upon creating digitized documents, make sure to handle them properly. Organize your documents efficiently. Your office must have computers if you want to create a paperless office. Make sure to save documents of the same type in one folder, and label the folders correctly.

4. Use Teamviewer

To have a more efficient workplace, you can use TeamViewer. TeamViewer is a computer software tool for remote control, desktop sharing, web conferencing, and file transfer. This software application can help you to conference call with business partners or clients, conveniently.

5. Scan Slips With Your Smartphone

If you need to complete several tasks in a rush, try to maximize the use of your smartphone. Order slips, cash slips, and receipts can be sent to you through your smartphone, so you won’t have to jump from one place to another to check on every company department. Scanning slips may also be a very useful practice since scanning instantly and automatically saves a copy to your phone.

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6. Implement Paperless Billing

If you plan on implementing a paperless office, then you also need to implement paperless billing. This method of billing may take some time to establish, and you will have to be very careful in choosing a high-risk payment gateway. A credible portal is a must, to secure proper transactions.

7. Invest In A File Document

A paperless office must have custom forms and documents. Order forms, payment forms, application forms, and the like, should be well-made and presentable. Invest some of your time in creating these documents, to create uniformity in the workplace.

8. Management Solution That Includes File Sharing

One of the problems in a paperless office is the compatibility of computers, in particular for those who own personal laptops or MacBooks. A company can create a cloud account to aid in the file sharing process.

9. Set Up Fax To Email And Eliminate The Fax Machine

We should have stopped using fax machines as soon as technology became more advanced. You can set up your Gmail or any e-mail account that you have, to send business clients, proposals, and papers. Faxing documents is costly. In addition to that, documents that are already sent via fax are hard to cancel, especially if the document is encrypted. There is also the chance that your document may be directed to another party or an unknown fax number by mistake. Work on learning how to use modern e-mails because e-mail is a more secure and reliable way of communication.

10. Implement A Culture and Execute

One of the best office practices is a positive office culture. Everyone should practice office culture. Culture can be instilled by training. Train your employees never to waste a client’s time, and never to lose a customer. Gradually, your staff will understand what you want to achieve, and they will work towards the culture naturally. Some of the best office cultures include being client-friendly and never running late for client meetings.

11. Training That Encourages Scanning Everything

Office practices are instilled by training. From training, your employees should be able to practice positive culture. Train and encourage them to scan everything; documents, proposals, forms; everything they receive. Competitive and skilled employees will make for an efficient, paperless office. Employees should know that not everything the office receives is legitimate, and they should learn to validate all information or documents retrieved, to avoid any conflict.