Turn Your Business Into a Paperless Zone

To network with businesses in your industry, join your local chamber of commerce today. The organization allows you access to various member benefits and might even be able to further establish your business as a paperless one. 

For more help and advice, consider joining your local chamber of commerce.

The Benefits of Going Paperless

When you choose to run a paperless business, you need to implement changes slowly. Whether it's making changes in one office or company-wide, the benefits outweigh the administrative task of changing over to paperless. 

• Reduces costs. Printers, ink cartridges, and reams of paper can be costly. Also, you might need more space to store paperwork which could mean more rental costs. 

• Improves carbon footprint. Using less paper means a reduction in landfill waste and fewer trees being cut down. 

• Saves space. Create a more minimalist environment by clearing away cabinets of files and old paperwork.

• Encourages collaboration. With company-wide access to documents, teams can easily collaborate by sharing files, creating shared spreadsheets, and project documents. You can also synchronize and update documents while online with others. 

• Increases security. You can beef up security by password-protecting online folders. Paperwork can often get lost, stolen, or damaged. 

Plan for Success

You need an organized action plan to transform your business into a paper-free zone, coupled with buy-in from employees. Be careful not to overwhelm everyone with a multitude of ideas at once. Implementing incentives or offering after-hours pay to help with the task of getting documents online are some good ways to get everyone on board. 

Convert Your Files

A good place to start is to convert all paperwork to a digital format. Depending on how much paperwork you have, you might need to hire someone to scan and convert documents to PDFs, then categorize them and file them online. From there, combine PDFs which allows users to grab multiple PDF files and merge them into one document. Storing all your invoices, contracts, and important documents online means that anyone around the world can access these files — provided you grant them access. 

Going online can free up plenty of office space and potentially save you money. By eliminating paper files and the containers required to store them, you save space in your office. Taking everything online may help you avoid having to move to a larger office to accommodate your business along with all the paperwork and years of old files.

Make Judicious Use of Technology

Another tip for starting the paper-free process is to source a variety of apps and software solutions, such as Jotform, an online form builder. Systems that allow for e-signatures, electronic billing, and digital receipts are worth investing in. For media storage, consider Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive. Conduct all this research before proposing a company-wide change. 

Going Paperless

Migrating your office environment into a paperless one can be straightforward if you plan it carefully. Do your research into the apps and software to use in place of paperwork to digitize processes, and create a detailed plan of the steps involved in navigating a planet-friendly way forward.