Reasons You Should Go Paperless

If you’ve ever had to go through piles upon piles of file folders to find a single document, you can surely understand how time-consuming it can be.

Wouldn’t it be convenient if you simply typed the file’s name on a computer and hit enter for it to appear on the screen?

That’s possible if you opt to go paperless.

But what are the benefits of going paperless in business, and which are the best apps for going paperless? You will find all this and more in this article.

Benefits of Going Paperless in Business

Whether you’re a startup or a well-established business, going paperless to some extent is always a good idea.

Here are a few benefits of going paperless that will surely inspire you to cut out paper in your business:

1. More Organization and Efficiency

Did you know an average person spends 10 minutes a day looking for misplaced documents? That makes about 6 months of your life! You can save those 6 months by going paperless.

Keeping up with a messy stack of loose papers not only causes disorganization but directly affects your efficiency also. So, if you want to enhance your company’s image for being professional and efficient, you need to lose the paper!

2. Hassle-Free Collaboration

A document available in hardcopy form would probably lie with one person and would have to be photocopied and distributed among others, adding to the cost. The trouble caused if someone lost the document is another story altogether.

How convenient would it be if the same document is readily accessible by anyone who needs it? This is why you need to shift to paperless documents for easy access, sharing, and editing, all with reduced costs. In other words, going paperless is the key to a hassle-free collaboration.

3. Backups

The best thing about going paperless is the multiple backup options, unlike hardcopy documents, which are gone forever if thrown away accidentally!

With electronic documents, you could save your important data on an external hard drive, a flash drive, or a cloud-based document management system like Wondershare PDFelement Cloud that offers pre-scheduled backups, putting your mind at ease!

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4. Environmental Safety

It takes about 24 trees to make 1 ton of paper, and with 422 million metric tons of paper used each year, imagine the number of trees cut down for paper manufacturing!

Cutting down on paper for day-to-day businesses and opting for paperless solutions is not only environmentally safe but decreased use of printers, copiers, and fax machines means less energy consumption.

So, go paperless, go green!

5. Save Money

When all your office documentation is paper-based, you spend approximately $983 on paper, $500 on folders and labels, $6113 on ink, $2148 on a black & white printer or copier, and $1880 on a colored printer or copier, according to eFileCabinet.

That’s about $11,624 a year!

You can reduce this number by 85% if you go paperless.

6. Enhanced Security

Talking about additional costs, we cannot ignore the presence of lockable file cabinets and paper shredders in offices for security reasons. Not only do they take up a lot of space in the office, but they fail to provide foolproof security.

And, privacy and data protection is the primary concern for companies and their customers.

For this, you’ll have to go beyond lockers and shredders; you’ll have to go paperless. Opt for cloud-based systems to safe-keep your important documents. There are many options, including Wondershare PDFelement Cloud, for this purpose.

7. Peace of Mind

Keeping up with the clutter and the fatigue of going through folders to find a single document can surely keep you on your toes. On the other hand, going paperless can definitely reduce your stress and keep you peaceful by simplified workflow, easy access to documents, and improved security.

If these 7 benefits of going paperless in business don’t have you going electronic, I don’t know what will!

However, if you’re all up for switching to secure and cost-effective options, here are some of the best apps for going paperless.

Best Apps for Going Paperless

Overflowing file cabinets? That ever-growing stack of receipts on your desk?

The following apps will help you tackle all these issues:

1. Wondershare PDFelement Cloud

One of the best apps for going paperless is Wondershare PDFelement Cloud. This browser-based tool is a complete document management solution that provides bank-level data security and is accessible across multiple systems, including Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android.

Other useful features offered by this tool include 100GB of cloud storage, electronic signatures, and collecting feedback from others by highlighting, underlining, and commenting. That’s not all! You can also share documents with your colleagues and track the whole process.

2. Dropbox

Having your official documents all over the place can be quite a hassle. To avoid this, you need a collaborative tool like Dropbox. With this app, you can easily store not only work-related files but your personal documents also.

When using Dropbox for official purposes, you can work side-by-side with your team members, and share files in a secure way. It also helps you work efficiently with your clients on important projects. The best part? Everything is in one place!

3. Google Drive

Another app that helps you go paperless is Google Drive, and it’s one of the most popular tools as well. Accessible from all devices, you can use this app to store, share, and collaborate on files including spreadsheets, slides, and docs.

Google Drives gives you 15GB of free cloud storage, but you can always get more storage by paying a small amount. Also, everything stored here is fully secure and encrypted and cannot be accessed by anyone, unless you give them permission.

So, if you want to speed up your work, and work simultaneously on a single project with your whole team on board, get Google Drive now!

4. Box

If you’re looking for an app that keeps all your digitized documents in one place, you should give Box a try. It is a cloud-based system that helps manage and share your files securely in accordance with privacy laws and standards, including GDPR and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, among others.

The seamless collaborative features, complete with robust security and easy access from all devices, make it a trustworthy app used by the world’s leading organizations.

5. IDrive

Storing all your important documents on a computer or external storage is a good idea, but there’s always the risk of losing your data if it gets corrupted. This is where IDrive comes to your rescue.

It offers the best cloud backup and storage options, and the best part is that you can use a single account to back up all your devices, like PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Android. It has an option of automatic updates, which, when turned on, keeps backing up your computer. Moreover, it keeps you informed about all the activities by sending regular backup status reports. With IDrive, you never miss a thing!

6. Invoicely

If receipts and invoices are taking up much space on your office desk, it’s time to switch to a paperless billing solution. Invoicely is a web-based invoicing platform that helps you send and receive invoices while tracking your expenses and earnings simultaneously.

So, if you’re managing multiple businesses and having trouble keeping track of the activities, this free online tool is sure to streamline all your processes in one place, with full-fledged security.

7. PandaDoc

A software designed explicitly for document automation, PandaDoc is an all-in-one tool to create, edit, sign, send, and track professional-looking documents. It offers various templates and custom fields using which you can create impressive documents in an instant.

Moreover, it also has plenty of collaborative tools, notification options, and improvement tips for your documents to get them working for you.

8. FineScanner

If you’re looking for an easy way to digitize your documents, you definitely need FineScanner. Using this app, you can easily scan your documents and convert them into editable formats like Word, Excel, and PDF.

Apart from this, it has an image-to-text recognition feature that helps you search for scanned documents easily using keywords. So, cut down document scanning costs and get this tool to turn your physical documents paperless.

9. Asana

If you’re tired of maintaining a calendar or planner, Asana can lend you a helping hand! It is a project management app that is ideal for team collaborations. You can use it to make groups, list down tasks that need to be done, assign them to other members, and have a bird’s eye view of all the activities that need to be carried out, complete with details and deadlines.

So, if you want to streamline all your day-to-day tasks, Asana is an ideal choice.

While these 7 apps will help you manage everything seamlessly once you go paperless, you still need to have an insight into how to manage everything electronically.

And for that, we have rounded up some tips for going paperless.

Tips For Going Paperless

Now that you are all set to eliminate paper from your office, here are some tips for you to go by:

1. Go-Forward Approach

You probably have a lot of paper documents from the past stacked up in some corner of your office. The first step to going paperless is to forget about that pile! Use the go-forward approach and focus on what you have to do now as you’re cutting down paper usage. Just make sure there are no additions in the already accumulated backlog.

2. Invest in Project and Document Management Services

The second tip for going paperless is to get apps or services that aid you in your decision. As a starter pack, go for to-do list apps, cloud storage services, scanning software, and e-signature tools, some of which we have mentioned earlier.

3. Use Digital Forms

If you’re collecting information via questionnaires or surveys, opt for digital forms instead of paper forms. They will be easier to fill and manage.

Summing Up

Most businesses, big or small, are going paperless to save costs and to be more organized. You can do it too! But don’t be too hard on yourself and your employees. It’s a gradual process that needs to be taken one step at a time.

So go paperless, starting today, and see how a small change benefits your business big time!