Using Document Management to Ensure Business Continuity: Examples for Accountants
This blog will not serve as a comprehensive guide for organizations interested in going paperless through Document Management Software (DMS), but it will open your mind to its importance and how a lack of it can result in terrible things, including how having it in place can prevent the biggest business debacles imaginable.
The alternative to these technologies being paper-based organization management tools, like filing cabinets and paper folders, costs organizations revenue due to their detrimental inefficiencies: costs incurred from misfiling, in-office manual labor, and cramped storage space.
In implementing Document Management Software as one of the foremost alternatives to traditional, paper-based office management tools, organizations may reduce frustration while simultaneously saving time, becoming more efficient, and streamlining workflow—all of which facilitate organizational freedom: the freedom to increase profits, acquire greater portions of industry market share, become industry leaders, harness the time to tackle projects for which many organizations are yet to find the requisite resources, and ultimately better serve customers and beneficiaries.
However, these things are not necessarily painful, and mainly because most organizations don’t even know they are wasting money this way.
But receiving the proper instruction and insight on implementing, utilizing, and benefitting from any DMS solution is crucial to return on investment, and the best instruction is an example of what will go wrong without it in place.
What Goes Wrong Without Document Management Systems?
There are presently no laws banning the digitization of documents as long as certain paper files, such as certifications, are retained in their original, paper format—these instances being rare. There are many examples where information stored or shared via non-compliant means left the employee and firm vulnerable and responsible. The news reported that confidential client information leaked through a stolen CD cost an accountant $200,000 in damages.
Sounds awful, right? Well, here’s an example of how these sorts of things can be prevented through eFileCabinet document management software.
Although DMS has already saturated the accounting market, many larger firms are already looking to utilize solutions with even greater legal bandwidth, including DMS options. One accounting firm experienced how DMS enabled the retention of critical information amid a full-fledged disaster:
What Goes Right With A Document Management System
In February of 2006, Fosselman and Associates of Anchorage, Alaska, suffered a total building loss due to fire. Mere weeks away from tax deadlines, the building was completely destroyed. Because they had already made the choice to be a paperless office through eFileCabinet’s DMS, all essential business files had been backed up, stored, and protected off-site—making them retrievable.
They were able to open the following day by noon in a rented building with ten years of tax returns and critical documents intact and on-hand. Because they were prepared before this disaster struck, they actually gained clients through a situation that could have potentially shut them down forever.
Additionally, as both international and US laws adhere increasingly to environmental concerns, authorities and governing bodies are advocating DMS, meaning it could become mandatory for organizations in the near future. As organizations grow in number and new laws are enacted to govern them, companies will be held to higher standards for data protection, and organizations using DMS and similar technologies prior to the enacting of these laws will have the benefit of undertaking the transition on their own terms.
Accounting, much like the legal profession, is a field in which employees thrive off earning more billable hours. Any means by which billable hours are made more obtainable is of benefit to accountants, and DMS provides the efficiency, organization, and digitization to accomplish these means.
We are confident that when coupled with the information outlined in the above examples, any small to mid-sized organization will be able to optimize their understanding of and ability to utilize their DMS solution, helping its administrators reap the immediate, present, and future benefits of DMS technology; primarily in Human Resources, accounting, and finance processes.
As DMS becomes an increasingly essential technology in the finance and accounting industries, small to mid-sized organizations in every industry must soon contend with the new organizational order that DMS and similar technologies are imposing upon the landscape of operational efficiency, for even the best manual filing system cannot contend with DMS technology.
The examples above will also serve organizations presently using DMS technologies, some of which are either underutilizing its capacity or have in one respect or another failed to integrate DMS technology features into preexisting organizational processes. The latter of these two concerns is more important: Integrating DMS does not require overhauling or bureaucratizing organizations’ current processes, but rather improving these processes through DMS technology.
DMS solutions will not only help organizational leaders become better at their careers while playing a vital role in the success of their companies, they will also offer many benefits.
eFileCabinet is confident that document management will serve all small to mid-sized organizations in streamlining internal processes—freeing up the time necessary to focus on what matters, therein empowering organizational leadership to better meet consumer demands throughout the Information Age.
Records management entails the necessary legal considerations for DMS use as ordained by authorities, not just common industry practices.
Many organizational decision-makers are wary of making their organizations paperless due to legal concerns. However, not only does the Supreme Court of the United States use a system similar to DMS for records management, it also considers digital files best evidence in the court of law—whether on an organizational, criminal, or civil basis.
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