Paperless office and going paperless are two phrases commonly thrown about. The concept has been around for the last forty years. It was first mentioned in a Business Week article called “The Office of the Future” in 1975. However, it still remains a notion rather than a reality in most offices.
Did you know that if we stack up all the paper businesses use in the US every year, the pile will reach halfway to the moon? And even worse, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, almost half of the paper used in an office is discarded within a day.
The benefits of a paperless office go far beyond the environmental implications. But what exactly are the benefits of reducing paper consumption in your office? Let’s take a look.
What are the Advantages of going paperless?
Paperless offices are more efficient
One significant advantage of a paperless office is the ease with which documents can be found. Office workers spend 30-40 percent of their time looking for documents in physical file cabinets with it being faster to retrieve a document from a document management system than finding it in a folder tucked away in a box, using digital documentation saves you time from searching for documents.
Information is also easily accessible to employees, and you can restrict access to certain documents that require confidentiality. It is also easier to trace the origin of documents, so you can see who made changes to the documents and when those changes took place.
Businesses that go paperless cut their processing errors by an average of 90%. Furthermore, they also achieve 70% to 80% efficiency improvements after removing manual processes to adopt digital technologies like eSign Genie.
With the click of a button, you can easily access the necessary documentation from anywhere and at any time.
Documents are more secure
Any proficient con man can falsify your signature. Digital Signature removes that concern. Electronic signatures ensure that the one deploying the signature is the right person. Aside from that, eSign Genie encrypts electronically signed documents using a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) algorithm that locks and authenticates the document signatures digitally. Furthermore, eSign Genie generates an audit trail that tracks each document by IP address and time stamp, which can be submitted in court. That’s something no con artist can ever reproduce.
Financial Savings
Electronic signatures are a cost-effective alternative to wet ink signatures. The ability to sign a document online has a direct influence on cost reduction. There is no longer a need to buy and have on hand, large amounts of paper. It also saves money on the maintenance of printers, the buying of spare parts, and it also reduces expenditure on envelopes and stamps. These may seem like small costs to your business, but they all add up. By adopting an electronic signature solution like eSign Genie, you will be able to save on average $20 per document, and according to estimates the total savings a business could make the year go up to around $300.000
American businesses spend more than $120 billion annually for paper documents. According to The Paperless Project, the cost to fill in a filing cabinet is $25,000 a year. Besides, it takes around $1,500 to maintain it; while the average cost to file a document of $20. On top of that, each miss file costs organizations $125, and $350 every lost document. That’s a lot of work hours, paper, and energy spent on a metal structure with drawers.
More available space
By getting rid of physical documents, an office will clear up a lot of space. With a digital documentation system in place, all files are now able to be archived in the Cloud or on company servers. You can use the newly freed up space to set up additional offices for employees or even create a rest area for colleagues to socialize in.
In Conclusion
More companies are choosing to go the paperless route than ever before. These advantages are driving companies to eliminate paper it all of its business processes.
To assist companies in achieving their paperless office goals, eSign Genie offers an electronic signature solution that allows you to sign all documents online. Companies that use our software, no longer need to print off contracts and sent them by mail. They can send the contract directly to an email account or can sign straight from our platform. Businesses can also sign with eSign Genie from any computer, smartphone, or tablet.
Going paperless with eSign Genie brings a few more advantages. Here are just a few:
- There are a great many benefits to becoming a paperless office:
- Time Savings
- Improved Customer Service
- Better Communication
- Efficient Audits
If eSign Genie is here to pave the way to a paperless future, if this sounds like the right move for you and your company, take advantage of our free 14-day trial and sign up now to gain access to all our amazing features.