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The amount of data flowing through an organization is huge, so managing it effectively is crucial. If you take a moment to think about it, it’s the proposals, contracts, invoices, and sales orders that show your business is functioning.
To handle such intense information flow, regardless of the sector your company or industry operates in, automating documents will ensure that you have a system that centralizes that data. This will facilitate the creation, approval, and distribution of any and all documents. In other words, automation is what will keep your company thriving.
But if you’re not convinced yet, or if you need further clarification on what we mean, here are some benefits your organization will gain from automating documents:
1 – Time Optimization
Undoubtedly, time is our most valuable resource. Why sacrifice it by manually managing documents? If we look at certain departments, such as finance, how many hours do professionals waste entering data manually?
Since finances are important for the company and good governance requires transparency in information, all other tasks that finance professionals need to perform take a backseat until all the paperwork is completed.
We gave the example of the finance department, but the same can be applied to all other departments within an organization. When document management is automated and follows a streamlined process, employees are free to focus on important tasks.
Instead of wasting time on details like going after a given signature, they can invest that time in global projects that will yield better results. Instead of reviewing cash flow statements, they can process actual orders. Instead of searching for a commercial proposal, they can communicate with clients and build better, lasting relationships.
No matter how your teams choose to invest the extra time provided by document automation, the fact is that there are numerous tasks in an organization that are far more valuable than manual data entry.
2 – Compliance Assurance
Compliance is often overlooked but is an essential component of operational efficiency. Your team may be more productive or more effective and efficient than your competitors, but if your documents are not compliant, all their hard work becomes unnecessary.
To ensure that your organization complies with industry regulations, standards and controls must be established, ranging from codes of conduct to procedures, norms, and policies.
Document automation systems facilitate compliance by creating document standards, establishing access and editing controls, and distributing documents as needed.
3 – Management of the Entire Lifecycle
Every document has a lifecycle. Consider contract management, for example. It begins with a request and ends with a signature. In between, there are other steps to be followed.
Automating documents means they will follow a predefined workflow established by your company. This workflow is determined within a process that automatically completes an activity once it’s finished and sends it to the responsible person for the next step.
In practice, this means that no physical document will pass from hand to hand, and no information will be lost in a sea of emails. It also means that no more certificates or proxies will get expired dates and catch everyone by surprise.
These seemingly small details will make your organization much more productive, transparent in its relationships with employees, clients, and suppliers, and, once again, ensure compliance with industry standards.
4 – Accuracy Guarantee
A misplaced comma in an invoice or a sales order with one zero less can cause immense damage to a company. Imagine sending a proposal to a client and then realizing that the version sent wasn’t the latest one. That would certainly damage your credibility, right?
Typos or outdated information can occur when data entry is done manually. While nobody likes it when such mistakes happen, they can be attributed to human error and the overwhelming number of tasks we often have. However, this should not be an excuse for your organization to let errors slide or accept them.
By automating documents, data is automatically and correctly entered, giving the entire company the peace of mind that the information is accurate and that the version being worked on is the latest one.
5 – Increased Collaboration
Someone in your company is waiting for customer data to generate a contract. Another person is waiting for the contract itself to send it to the customer. Meanwhile, the customer is waiting for the signature. In this case, a lot of time is wasted for everyone involved.
With document automation, tasks are completed more quickly and efficiently. Some activities don’t depend on others to start, and when there is a dependency, the automation system sends notifications to the person responsible for the task. And whenever an activity is being efficiently carried out, the company’s revenue grows.
Collaboration is crucial in creating many documents within an organization, as several departments may be responsible for their creation. With a dedicated system for document automation, collaboration becomes a benefit, allowing authorized individuals to work on the same document, with all actions easily traceable.
So, how do you automate documents?
By now, you’ve understood some of the benefits of document automation. But you also need to learn how to do it, right?
The answer lies in a document management system. An ECM software (Enterprise Content Management) is not just a technology or a methodology.
As the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) puts it, ECM is a “dynamic combination of strategies, methods, and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver information that supports key organizational processes throughout their lifecycle.”
If you have any questions about the topics covered in this article, visit our website and get in touch with us. We’d be happy to talk to you! If this post was helpful, feel free to share it on your social networks. Not familiar with Fusion Platform yet? Try it for free for 15 days
