#paperless solutions

Printing is costly and those costs come from a lot of different directions. They come from paper and ink and the fact that printers seem to need constant maintenance. For some businesses, it’s all too much and they are actively looking for ways to go paperless and cut out their printing and filing costs. Today, we will examine whether or not forsaking the troublesome printer is actually cost effective.

A Couple Reasons to Go Paperless

Obviously, if your business is looking to cut out its printing costs, you’ve identified printing as being prohibitive to your business’ operational budget in some way. It’s true that your average employee doesn’t consider your business’ paper, ink, and printing costs when they print off every document they work on; or worse yet, three-dozen NCAA brackets. They just figure that you’ve got it worked out. So one reason is to obviously cut costs.

  Another reason is that it’s basically unnecessary. Today, most employees, customers, vendors, etc. have access to machines that can function better (and faster) than traditional business document filing strategies. Smartphones, laptops, and other mobile devices all can access databases filled with content much faster and more efficiently than the fastest file clerk can deliver it. While this also cuts costs, relying on always-available digital systems just makes sense in today’s business climate.

What is a DMS?

A DMS, or Document Management System, is effectively a digital database of all the paper files your employees would ever need, and it is how businesses cut costs from traditional methods of paper-filing and retrieval. With a DMS, your paper documents are scanned and digitized. They are then filed away in a computer database that can be accessed around the clock so that the people that need access to that information, have it on demand.

  Many people may not understand just how expensive filing can be for a business. Not only do you have to pay an entire staff of people to constantly file and retrieve paper files, you also need to have a filing system in place that is secure and makes files readily available. Industry averages are about 7-to-12 cents per page to scan and upload to a DMS. This is substantially lower than the printing, payroll, and storage costs of keeping an onsite paper-filing system.

So while there are still costs involved, they don’t recur at the same rate once the file is scanned and stored inside the DMS. Anyone with access to the database will be able to access the file. Best yet, securing the file is as simple as managing user account access; something that most businesses already do with their digital resources.

So, How Does DMS Save My Business Money?

It’s simple. Once your files are stored in the DMS, you never have to worry about paying people to physically find a file. All they need to do is search the DMS and the document in question is available almost immediately. Not only that, file redundancy is there. The system comes with a comprehensive backup. Studies have shown that large organizations basically lose a file every six seconds, a problem you will avoid with a properly-functioning DMS.

  To talk to one of our experts about the possibility of managing your printing costs, and how a document management system helps in keeping those costs down, give our IT professionals a call today at 800-394-2301.

Once upon a time, the printer was absolutely crucial for business to be conducted properly, but nowadays, the use of digital solutions has greatly reduced the need of printing things in greater volumes. However, this is not to say that printing is not still an important facet of your business to manage. Here, we’ll examine how print management can help a business do so. ________________________________________ Business Printing In the past, businesses greatly relied on the use of their printers, but it really can’t be said that this use is particularly monitored, even now. As a matter of fact, a survey conducted by Buyer’s Laboratory suggests that a full 90 percent of companies (yes, nine-zero) don’t keep track of their printing costs – a number that can regularly add up to over five percent of a business’ total revenue. If this seems high, take a moment to consider the different expenses that contribute to this total.

Naturally, you have to consider the resources you need in order to use a printer. You need the requisite paper and ink, but not many people would think to include the electrical costs of keeping the printer in operation. You also need to take the time (about 15 percent of it) that your IT department spends dealing with printer-related issues and the 23 percent of help desk calls that are made in regard to these issues.

This all impacts your operational budget, and there’s a chance that you weren’t even aware of it. What Can Be Done? For starters, you need to begin tracking your printing costs, as it will be beneficial to find out how much of your budget is potentially being eaten away by unneeded spending there. Secondly, you should implement a print management solution to make it easier to continue this tracking in the future.

In order to really get the most out of your print management solution, you should have a strategy that allows you to do so. By granting you with greater insights into your printing, you can figure out ways to minimize or eliminate excessive costs, without negatively impacting the accessibility of printed materials.

When considering your options for a print management platform, we recommend that you look for the following features:

● Comprehensive Assessments – As we said, many organizations don’t use any tools to keep track of their printing costs. This tool in particular will give you a better idea of how much is being printed, where it is being printed from, and when your devices are due for maintenance. ● Print Management – A print management platform can provide you with precise controls over how your printers can be used. ● Paper-to-Digital Conversions – By transferring your printed resources into digital ones, you can evaluate the value that they provide when printed and better optimize your printing costs. ● Better Security – It stands to reason that your data security can improve when you have more control over this data. Hard copies inherently mean that you have less control, and a greater risk of a security issue. ● Tracking Capabilities – By tracking how much is being printed, you can help optimize your costs through implementing certain controls, like user limitations on how much can be printed in a set amount of time. ● Setting Print Policies – You can set up resource-saving policies like enforcing double-sided printing and establishing print quotas to prevent users from abusing the office printer.

If your business’ documents are resulting in excessive costs, reach out to our IT experts today! Infradapt can help you keep your printing under control. Call 800.394.2301 to learn more.