Most medium to large businesses generate large quantities of paper documents as part of the everyday workflow. From incoming and outgoing post to internal business documentation; accounts, tax records, invoices and receipts to personnel records, all are likely clogging up your company’s filing cabinets right now.
Quite apart from the cost implications of generating, and storing, all of this printed material; storing your companies records on paper raises issues of security, business continuity, and – frankly – whether you can actually find the documents you’re looking for when you need them.
Managed Document Services offers a potential solution to all of these issues, by providing an integrated, cost-effective, secure workflow to handle, store, and retrieve all of your business documentation.
Cost
The bottom line for any business is money, which is why it’s important to know that a bespoke Managed Documents Service from ASL could save your business, on average, 30% of what you currently spend in this area. Savings come through:
– Reducing the amount of staff time spent managing documents, especially searching for and retrieving seldom used paperwork from the depths of your paper filing system, freeing your team up to do work which genuinely matters.
– Cutting down on the amount of printing your business needs to do. Even though it’s a task most office workers carry out many times a day, printing is increasingly one of the principal expenses for a business. This is especially true once the cost of ink, and power, are factored in. A quality Managed Document Service can significantly cut down on the amount of printing needed, and save you money.
– Storing your records digitally means that you will no longer need all the space currently taken up by filing cabinets and archive boxes, so you can use it for a more valuable activity, or even have a smaller office and cut down your rent every month.
Security
In these days where individuals have greater rights to privacy and are more concerned with the protection of their personal data, it is vital for every business to secure their records appropriately. This is especially true at the current time, with the General Data Protection Regulation coming into force on May 25th, and imposing fines potentially exceeding 20,000,000 Euros on any business which doesn’t have adequate privacy safeguards in place.
Managed Document Systems from ASL incorporate stringent and effective security mechanisms, and allow you to have fine-grained control over who can access what data, and from which areas of your business. All of your data can also be encrypted, meaning that even if your office were to suffer a break-in and the servers storing your data be stolen, the thieves would still be unable to access your records without your encryption key. All offering a far higher level of security over paper records alone.
Business Continuity
Once you have a secure, digital repository for all of your business documents, it becomes a trivial task to backup and secure that data in an alternative location. ASL can arrange for regular backups of all of your data in off-site, secure locations. Backups such as this ensure that if you ever lose access to your usual office (e.g. through natural disaster, theft, or any other disruption), you will still be able to access your data, and get your business back up and running in a matter of hours.
Environmental
Reducing the amount of paper and printing your business carries out will reduce your ecological impact significantly. In fact, combined with other savings such as cutting postal bills, and reducing the size of space you need, businesses can reduce their carbon footprint by as much as 60% through fully utilising one of ASLs individually designed, bespoke Document Management Systems.
Compliance
As a fully digital system, ASL can configure your Document Management system to create an auditable trail of every action which is performed on every document uploaded into the system. You will always know whenever a document has been accessed, and by whom. Records will be kept of any copies made, and the date and time that any actions are carried out. Access logs will also be maintained within the Document Management System, ensuring that you are aware as soon as possible if any individual – even from within your own company – attempts to access any information they do not have access to.
These measures mean that it becomes straightforward for you to demonstrate your business’s compliance with the GDPR, as well as various ISO, SOX, and standards going forward.
If you think that your business would benefit from a bespoke Managed Document System, please telephone or email us here at ASL today so that we can arrange a free, no obligation discussion of your needs and help you to arrange the most effective, best value for money solution to help manage your business documentation and paperwork.