Thinking of a paperless office? Why it’s a good idea. - Advantage Route

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Thinking of a paperless office? Why it’s a good idea.

A paperless office? How? Why? What?

You may be wondering how that would work, why it is necessary and what affect it would have on your day-to-day. Remember the first time you heard about a self-diving car or face-to-face video calls? It was like something out of the Jetson’s that seemed futuristic and out of reach. Now it is all around us and part of our day-to-day. A paperless office is along those exact same lines. This is why we choose this for our July, Technology Ground School topic.

The time is NOW to take advantage of this concept. Here are some reasons why.

A paperless office can lead to many benefits, such as reducing clutter, saving time and money on printing and storage costs, improving organization and accessibility of documents, and promoting eco-friendliness by reducing paper waste.

Even though this concept and technology have been around for years, old habits do not die quickly. The average office worker still uses thousands of sheets of paper a year and spends hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on printed forms which generally become outdated in a number of months.

Here are several steps you can take to create a paperless office:

Digitize all your paper documents using a scanner or document camera.
Store the digital documents in a cloud-based storage service (Mango File).
Use digital tools for communication, such as email, messaging apps and software (Route Manager).
Encourage your team to use digital signatures instead of physical signatures (Mango Sign).
Use electronic invoicing and payment systems (Mango Pay).
Use digital forms (Mango Forms) and digital note-taking apps instead of physical notepads and forms.
Avoid printing when possible and encourage others to do the same.

By taking these steps, you can not only reduce your environmental impact but also improve your team’s efficiency and productivity. Even though all of these sound like very positive benefits, we like to look at the pros and cons. Some potential cons of a paperless office include:

Dependence on technology and the need for reliable and secure digital storage solutions (Mango Cloud)
Initial cost of implementing new technology and digitizing existing paper documents
Potential for increased screen time and eye strain for employees
Need for employee training on digital tools and software
Accessibility issues for employees with disabilities who may require printed materials

If you are able to look past the cons just listed, Mango File integrates with your Route Manager software to make the transition to a paperless office a smooth one. With Mango File, each document is stored electronically on your computer and can be accessed easily by simply entering a customer’s account number. Just as face-timing and Zoom is part of your daily activities, a paper-less office can be too. Moving from paper to digital documents is a critical step in the digital transformation companies want to achieve.