Many businesses are taking advantage of the dropping costs of hard drive space and implementing Electronic Document Management Systems.
These digital systems create a searchable database of scanned information and enables better business decisions and smoother customer service interactions. It also provides a much-needed disaster recovery plan and helps ensure regulatory compliance.
Unfortunately, many companies are deterred from an Electronic Document Management System because of the initial set up costs involved. They see paper documents as “free” because they often aren’t tracked as well as they should be and are swallowed by far-reaching office supply budgets. However, paper documents are definitely not free. In fact, they may even be costing your company more money than the digital options that are available today.
The Cost of Paper Filing
An average three-drawer filing cabinet may seem cost-efficient. However, this single piece of office furniture consumes a lot of time and money from your company’s bottom line.
One Time Cost
Cost of Cabinet: $400
Cost of Folders: $100
Cost of Paper Prints and Copies: 12,000 X $0.02 - $240
Annual Cost
Floor Space: 12 square feet X $1.75/foot/month - $252
Now think about how many filing cabinets your company hosts. A single filing cabinet costs around $2,000 every 5 years. If you only have 30 filing cabinets your hard costs would be over $60,000. Furthermore, about 7% of documents in a paper-based filing system are misfiled and lost. Recreating a lost document can cost around $200.
Now think about the time your employees spend sifting through files to find the information they are looking for. This time is a drain on productivity and your payroll. In addition, taking extra time to find information for clients can disrupt your customer service and make for an unpleasant experience.
A Better Way
Luckily, there is an easy solution. Electronic Document Management technologies provide the resources so you can create a secure and searchable archive of your business information. With the low cost of disk space there has never been a better time to consider this. A single 100 GB disk can store over 2,000,000 pages of information. Electronic Document Management can easily replace hundreds of filing cabinets in a fraction of the space, not to mention save your company money.
