5 Things That Will Happen When Your Business Goes Paperless

What changes when businesses put down the pen and paper and pick up the screen and mouse? A lot. Assuming you haven’t already made the switch to the digital-only (or digital-mostly), paperless,  world, you may be surprised at what you’re in for. Don’t worry, it’s mostly good.

• Show me the money. You’re going to see certain costs go way, way down and other new costs appear. Paper, ink and energy costs are going to go down; in fact, paper and ink costs will virtually disappear. To be fair, you have to balance that against a new cost. You probably already have a computer, which has an operating system and that operating system has a file system. So, there’s no new cost there. But what you may not already have, and what you are going to want, is a data management system. Data storage and management is best done off-site so that your data can stay safe and secure.
• Data will be safe and sound. Speaking of staying safe and secure, going digital means your files will now be password protected, versus scattered around your office desk. If you have off-site data storage and management, the level of security majorly increases. Just be sure you choose a company that takes measures to ensure that, like background checks for employees and state-of-the-art security technology.
• You’ll go green. Less paper equals more trees. It’s really that simple. It also means less water is wasted. It takes three gallons of water to make a single sheet of paper. If you feel a little guilty when you print 50+ pages of paper, going digital is also a great way to go green (and get rid of some of that “green guilt”).
• You’ll find files faster. Which pile of paper is that important financial statement hiding under? Finding this quickly and easily can be a big problem with paper. But digital organization makes it easy to find the right file in a moment’s notice. Plus, you can organize by folder, sub-folder, then sub-sub-folder and so on. It doesn’t take extra space to get super-organized digitally, but your desk and file cabinet are only so big.
• Backup will be better. Making a second copy of each piece of paper isn’t a realistic way to create backups. And even if you do that, and find enough space to store each backup, it’s not really a good method of redundancy. Anything that can destroy the first copy will just as easily destroy the second copy, especially if they’re housed in the same spot. But with digital files, you can schedule automatic backups of your data. This will give you some peace-of-mind, with very little effort.

As you can see, the results of going paperless are positive. That’s why it’s as good of time as any for your company to check into going paperless. If you need help sorting out your options, give Stevens & Stevens a call. We can provide our expertise and guidance, as well as store and manage your data in a safe, compliant manner, allowing you to find your files faster and back them up automatically. Learn more here: https://www.ssbrm.com/data-storage-protection-services/