According to a report by Skynova, 66% of businesses say processing invoices takes up more than five days per month. Additionally, almost half of all businesses require two to three people to approve an invoice. Great... so what if at least one of those three people are on vacation for a week?
Are your documents in disarray? Is it affecting how well your team performs?
Documents are the vessels of everyday business workflow environments. They are the means of distributing key information on every aspect of your business operations at large. Likewise, “unstructured” documents like images, videos, audio files, and emails play a key role in disseminating and sharing information. Workplaces are at their best when these documents, records, and content are easily accessible, well organized, stored appropriately, and fully secured. When you consider the documents that move in and out of your office and the content that gets shared across platforms and people, what do you envision? Is it an immaculately merchandised clothing store, or a heap of clothes stacked in the corner of a closet? Your response ultimately impacts productivity, compliance, and ultimately your bottom line.
Not sure what you envision? We’re here to help. Below, we’ve outlined 6 real-life business scenarios that could indicate it might be time to engage with a document, records, and content management software specialist.
DMS vs CMS, what’s the difference? (Document Management System) and CMS (Content Management System) are terms that often get used interchangeably — and although they perform similar functions, there are key differences. Most notably, a DMS works with structured documents (PDF, Word, PowerPoint, etc.), with a primary goal of workflow management. A CMS, meanwhile, manages a broader range of information, such as audio, video, and records management.
In both cases, your organization is working with Software as a Service (SaaS) technology, and you are benefitting from both centralized data storage as well as easier-enabled data management and retrieval.
Perhaps you’re a contractor onsite trying to quell a misunderstanding with a client. You need the change order to explain the selection of tile in the kitchen. Or you’re in administration and a client is rabid over a recent invoice. The last thing you want to do is hang up, pull, it, and call back 20 to 30 minutes later.
According to Gartner, on average, it takes a person 18 minutes to locate each document. Your business can do better than that. With Document/Content Management search functionality, locate documents in seconds in your repository based on whatever information you have (partial or full name, tag, field data, annotation text, etc.).
A file gets duplicated for edits, and before you know it, there are multiple other versions from multiple people in multiple places. In a Document Management software solution like Laserfiche, you enhance collaboration by maintaining a “single source of truth” by organizing content in a single platform for employees to access what they need, have a clear track on versions, and intuitively share content in your organization’s existing platform(s).
As an example, the Laserfiche integration with Microsoft Office 365 allows customers to easily edit Office 365 documents on the web directly from the Laserfiche web client document viewer. In addition, this allows for multiple users to simultaneously co-author documents with Office on the web, enabling a more streamlined experience to collaborate and edit content with others at once.
If we’ve learned anything from remote work, it’s that collaboration can be tricky and security risks can. As an example regarding collaboration, the Laserfiche integration with Microsoft Office 365 allows customers to easily edit Office 365 documents on the web directly from the Laserfiche web client document viewer. In addition, this allows for multiple users to simultaneously co-author documents with Office on the web, enabling a more streamlined experience to collaborate and edit content with others at once.
Document/Content Management not only fosters real-time collaboration, but also enhances security measures by access control, encryption, and audit trails to ensure that only the right people have access to specific documents. Solutions like Laserfiche can encrypt the documents at rest and in flight to the local desktop, where it becomes un-encrypted.
Records retention practices require that organizations maintain certain confidential records for set lengths of time, and then deploy a system (however manual or automated that might be) to either redirect, store or dispose of in a given length of time.
If you’re an accounting firm required by the IRS to keep tax documents for up to seven years, how are you managing this? Is access easy, or is it a matter of pilfering through boxes of documents in the back room?
With a Certified Records Management system through Document Management, you can swiftly manage the lifecycle of documents, get notifications when they are ready for disposition, and “auto-file” new records according to specific regulations and/or company policies.
According to a report by Skynova, 66% of businesses say processing invoices takes up more than five days per month. Additionally, almost half of all businesses require two to three people to approve an invoice. Great... so what if at least one of those people is on vacation for a week? That document collects dust until they return.
Expedite and automate AP approval processes from procurement to payment with the ability to recognize different invoice formats, and push them through workflows that keep the approval process moving no matter where your employee happens to be vacationing.
Perhaps you’re a medical facility with RNs visiting residents at their homes, compiling health data manually one by one and literally Fed-exing those documents back to corporate for processing. That gets expensive quickly.
With a Document Management-enabled forms solution, you can compile that information via digital form (be it patient vitals, prescription information, etc.) and send it securely to your corporate office or to wherever your paper documents were previously being shipped to.
If your document management strategy is in disarray, we're here to help you reorganize and reengage with a more efficient strategy. That begins with a thoughtful Discovery to help determine a strategy specific to your business needs. Click to schedule your meeting with a Document Management Specialist!