Electronic document management became even more relevant during the coronavirus pandemic when businesses tried to establish remote work and automate the exchange of both internal and external documentation. This article will tell you where to put important documents, and how to organize electronic document management in the company.
Transition to the electronic document management system: yes or no?
In the business environment, electronic documents have long been an innovation. Electronic document management is a natural stage of development, part of the digital transformation of the world as a whole. It is one of the ways to optimize business processes, which can significantly reduce the time for approval and signing of documents, get rid of numerous folders with papers and significant amounts of tedious paperwork.
Therefore, the question is no longer active – “to switch to digital document management or not?” Today’s topical issues include how to organize this process and what decision to choose. After all, there are many tools on the market to manage the creation, use, and storage of documents in various formats, which are formed throughout the organization. Almost all document management software is equally focused on the use and optimization of active documents and structured data, such as Word documents, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint, emails, and other specific formats.
What is the best way to digitize paper documents?
Today, the most effective tools to digitalize paper documents for business needs are virtual data rooms (VDRs). It is a secure cloud-based software that combines a safe data repository, file-sharing, and protected collaborative environment.
Such software solutions combine disparate business tools into a coherent network. Instead of entering data into Excel spreadsheets, instant messaging, and corporate mail, filling out many documents on different resources is a single service. It includes programs for customer data collection, project management, control of managers and executors assigned to projects, the ability to operational analytics, data processing, and forecasting. The use of such tools greatly simplifies the work, speeds up decision-making facilitates communication with customers, prevents errors and deadlines.
Using platforms for electronic document management, the company solves the following tasks:
- Improves the efficiency of process management and generates task flows.
- Reduces staff labor costs and reduces the financial cost of creating documents.
- Provides reliable accounting and security of document storage.
What are the VDR benefits?
- The versatility of the VDR
Data room document management is suitable for everyone – from small businesses with a minimum number of documents to huge corporations and holdings with self-written IT systems. The most important thing for the company before the implementation of the VDR is to determine the needs that need to be closed with its help, and only then monitor the market and study proposals from developers.
- Absolute transparency and tracking of documents at all stages of approval
A manager or other responsible person can easily monitor all documented business processes taking place in the company – it is enough to have constant access to the system. First of all, it allows you to quickly track the execution, receipt, and creation of any documents at each stage. And, of course, if necessary, make timely adjustments.
- Increased level of confidentiality
Almost all VDR solutions have a feature with a regulated distribution of access to documents, so that each employee works in their area of responsibility following their powers, without seeing those documents that are not within its competence. Another important advantage is the inability to remove or replace any documents, unlike paper versions.