Since the start of 2008 five of the six big energy suppliers have announced double digit rises in gas and electricity. For most small businesses this has a direct impact on profits. There’s no way you can pass this increase directly onto clients, at least not in the short term. So it certainly focuses the mind on the merits of operating a ‘green office’
Costs aside, ever wonder what it would be like to be able to find documents without leaving your desk or rummaging through file cabinets or boxes? Do you think about all the paper you put in files because you may need it someday, or the burdensome process of closing files and moving them to storage? Recall the times you’ve gone to storage to retrieve a single piece of paper. Now, consider what it would be like to have all those documents in electronic format, readily available whenever needed, or to close files simply by dragging them from an active work directory to an archive directory. At Zenith Limousines, this is the reality of the paperless office.
We discovered early on that, once you decide to go paperless, the physical part of the paperless office becomes manageable. It consists of the hardware and software needed to convert paper documents to digital documents and to store, retrieve, work with, and back up those digital documents.
Going paperless requires a few pieces of hardware to make the job easy and efficient. First, the most important item on the list is the scanner. Software is also an essential component for the conversion to paperless. Once upon a time, the choice of imaging applications was difficult and complex. Today, Adobe Acrobat is the standard for document exchange and has provided our office a good means for converting paper documents to digital files.
Finally, to commit your files to the digital realm, you must back them up – DAILY! Do NOT rely on differential or incremental backups.
These are just a few considerations when making the decision to convert to paperless. Paper is information and information is power. The paperless office is the bridge between your paper information and your computer.
