May 2023 Newsletter – A Paperless Office.. How to go Paperless
Going paperless. Going green. These were always statements that went together. Because we were going paperless we were going green. Because we were going green we were going paperless. But is going green a enough reason for people to go paperless? The answer is no. Many people and companies environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are not enough to go green. It can take time and money to convert to a paperless office; breaking habits we have all been accustomed to.
They say that money makes the world go round. So if money is what matters; lets talk money. Lets talk about how much money we waste on paper. According to a study by Unilever that was published in Forbes, “Businesses in the United States waste $8 billion on managing paper each year with an average price tag of $20 to file a document.” Think about all the documents you file. Put a price tag on them of $20, heck, even $5, and it adds up.. quick.
Paper isn’t cheap.
According to the industry research firm Gartner, Inc. they estimate that as much as 3% of a company’s revenue is spent on paper, printing, filing, and the costs to store information and maintain files. In addition, the average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year.
So lets go back to money. According to Staples.com today, May 3, 2023, a generic 20 pound box of paper contains 1,500 sheets and costs $20.49 plus tax and shipping which would to about $30.50. That is nearly 7 boxes of paper for each employee. That’s about $213.50 on 7 boxes for each employee. A small company of 10 employees will end up paying $2,135 on paper for those ten employees, which would be $21,350. That’s not factoring any special paper or projects that would inflate that price. Now lets talk storage for this paper. That paper needs to be stored somewhere whether it’s a filing cabinet, a box, a shelf, etc. This is prime office space that is being paid for storage. So those sheets of paper in your office are costing you money, a lot of money.
Okay, you’re not that phased with throwing that much money at paper, fine. Lets move on to the disadvantages of paper in the workplace.
Paper slows things down.
You run a business and you are responsible for your business files and records. A problem arises or a customer comes in and you need to track down a file from 4 years ago. In those 4 years that paper has touched different hands, has been placed on different shelves or boxes, and has been put away in a filing cabinet or storage. Files get messy over time. Paper gets misfiled. Some records don’t even make it to the file because they were never retrieved from the printer. Numerous things can happen to these files and that’s not even mentioning big problems like water and fire damage. Where does this leave your business and its records?
These are all issues that can addressed by going paperless. Is paperless 100% full proof? No. Nothing is. But in the long run it will save you time, money, and peace of mind.
So how do you go paperless? Where do you start? You start with calling a document management solutions specialist (like us, wink.) and set up a consultation and we can discuss how to digitize your records. You tell us what you need and we can come up with a way to index your records and make them searchable. When you need to pull a record from 4 years ago, you can just search the database and it will comb through your files for that file. The more specific indexing you obtain when scanning and indexing your files will help you immensely moving forward when you need to search your records. The files are stored digitally in your office or in the cloud and safer than your paper records would have been.
Sources: Forbes.com, Staples.com
