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If you’re looking to clean up the cluttered, unorganized mess of your filing cabinet, a document imaging system may sound appealing. While it is an improvement, with the ability to scan your documents and save them electronically, it doesn’t do much more than just that.
A document management system is actually what you’re looking for. It can streamline your processes, be set to automatically move documents between systems, and assist your administration in handling larger volumes of documents in much less time.
If you’re on the fence about whether or not you need a document management system, determine how the following short-comings of imaging systems could leave your business at a disadvantage.
1. No Simple Capture Method
If you have an imaging system the majority of your documents are, most likely, being sent through email. Most imaging systems do not provide an easy capture method capable of automatically opening, classifying, and downloading a document from an email attachment. This means productivity is lost as your staff must manually do this process themselves. Think of how much time is lost each day trying to classify and download all of these documents. A document management system could do it in seconds for them, freeing up hundreds of hours a year.
2. Doesn’t Provide Organization
You’ve seen that filing cabinet, how can any team efficiently manage all of those documents and organize them effectively?? It’s practically impossible. An imaging system simply uploads your documents and still leaves you the organizational grunt work.
A document management system provides the efficiency that your team is looking for as far as workflow capabilities. The system allows you to automate steps in your process, choosing who can see which documents and in the order in which they’re seeing them.
As your documents get uploaded, they will move through the automated process seamlessly to increase your productivity and reduce all the time wasted during manual searches. Your documents will move easily from person to person where each person can contribute additional documents or make annotations—even from office to office, and keep your business running smoothly regarding all document exchanges or sharing.
3. Your Systems Aren’t Set Up to Internally Communicate
With an imaging system, you’re simply filing documents and turning paper copies into digital copies. But what if you need a maintenance invoice to be connected with an original invoice or work order? Your team member would have to locate and link both documents manually, once again, reducing productivity.
With a document management system, all of your departments can digitally interact automatically. By routinely pushing and pulling documents from system to system, your workflow is optimized to work for you. Invoice amounts can be verified instantly, work orders can be matched with initial purchases, and any other document linking can be set to auto-pilot.
If an issue were to arise when something doesn’t quite match up, the system can automatically notify the team member in charge to review and correct the error. Your document management system can become the most efficient, communicative and informed assistant to your team.
The Hard Truth
There’s no way around saying that the capabilities of simple imaging systems are not enough for the modern business. If you’re looking to increase productivity and profitability, a document management and workflow system is going to serve you far better.
The even better news is that with Optix’s process, it’s simpler than ever to transform your business from paper to digital. Optix provides the support and experience needed to get you up and running with minimal downtime. Our customer support is always there when you need them to get your system on track even after the initial setup. Simply reducing your reliance on paper can improve organizational throughput by as much as 70%.
Interested in getting started? Contact us today to learn more about Optix and how document management and workflow solutions can transform your business processes.
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