Paperless office: 4 benefits and 7 tips

Those who have a paperless office are fully in tune with the current trend of paperless work. But the real reasons why you should have digital records have little to do with the hype. There are serious benefits associated with a paperless office that your organization can take advantage of. What exactly do these entail? And how do you set up a paperless office?

What are the 4 main benefits of a paperless office?

Fully digitizing your accounts takes quite a bit of time. You also have to invest in this. Will it pay you off in the end? Absolutely. Of course, with a paperless office, you contribute to a better world. But you also work a lot more efficiently and faster. And in the following ways:

You no longer have to perform repetitive, monotonous work. If you have a paperless office, for example, you no longer need to retype invoice data. Smart OCR software recognizes purchase invoices, so you can take on challenging tasks that add more value to your organization.

You’ll never lose invoices again. If you fully digitize the process of purchase invoice processing, you will have reliable records. You can easily maintain an overview. If you want to know where an invoice is, you can always find out with one click.

You benefit from a more efficient, faster approval process. If you work with workflow software, purchase invoices automatically pass all approvers. You can set fixed times for the system to send reminders, so you don’t have to worry about this. And the process doesn’t involve a single sheet of paper!

In a digital archive, you can find invoices at the touch of a button. Closets full of bulging invoice folders are a thing of the past with a paperless office. If you want to reference an invoice, you can retrieve it – including notes and receipts – very easily in your system.

Switching to digital invoice processing: 7 tips

Want to get started with a paperless office? Then start by automating your purchase invoice processing process. A good start is half the battle – especially if you want to keep solid digital records. That’s why we’d like to help you get started with 7 practical tips!

Process paper invoices systematically

Want to switch to a paperless office? Then you need to systematically convert the paper invoices you receive into digital versions. If you present each invoice individually on a scanner, you spend a lot of time. Smart software takes much of the work out of your hands. It allows you to scan a stack of purchase invoices very quickly and then easily split them into individual documents. Have you accidentally scanned invoices upside down or in the wrong order? Smart software lets you view and adjust the scanned documents immediately before saving them as attachments in your ERP system or archive.
Combine ‘paper’ and ‘digital’ into one document

Do you want to store a paper document together with a digital attachment in your digital archive? Then you need to combine 2 different document types. You do this using smart scanning software. With this you drag attachments received by mail directly to the right place, where you easily combine them with your scanned documents.
Choose smart OCR software

If you want to get rid of all the paperwork in your organization, one reason you do this is because you want to work more efficiently. In that context, it is crucial to choose a good OCR system that helps you process purchase invoices automatically (read more about this in our blog ‘What is OCR‘). Going for smart OCR software, then you eliminate not only paper but also repetitive manual work. This software looks at the values on your purchase invoice and is self-learning. This means that you can train the system as a user, so that it can apply certain knowledge to a similar document next time.
Go for usability

If you’re really going for a paperless office, you and your colleagues probably have to cross a virtual threshold. It is not always easy to let go of a familiar (paper-based) way of working. If you want to ease the transition, choose a user-friendly digital system that everyone can quickly learn to work with. In this way, the advantages become immediately clear. Any reluctance will disappear like snow in the sun!
Ask suppliers to submit invoices digitally

Do you want to work completely paperless, then your suppliers need to give you a hand. In that, you can guide them. Nowadays, it is increasingly normal to send invoices digitally, but some suppliers still prefer to work with paper. If you want to fully digitize your purchase invoice processing, you need to “educate” them a bit. Create an invoice mailbox and tell your suppliers that from now on you will only accept invoices by mail. If you then have to deal with a flood of e-mail messages, you can easily automate the sorting and processing of these with a handy tool such as the SMART Email Handler.
Handle a digital archive consciously

More and more companies are embracing digital invoice processing. But digital archiving of purchase invoices is often still a tricky issue. Are you actually allowed to set up a digital archive? And if so, how do you do it? To work in a paperless office, you need to learn more about this. You may store invoices digitallybut you must meet a series of legal requirements. Of course, it takes some time to figure everything out properly, but this pays off. Once you have a paperless office, you work much faster and more efficiently than before.
Choose a digital workflow to quickly approve invoices

If you process and book purchase invoices digitally, it is not convenient that you then have to print them out to collect the necessary signatures in the approval process. Then you still don’t have the paperless office you strive for. Reliable workflow software ensures that invoices are automatically sent to the appropriate approvers, who can give their approval anytime, anywhere. You no longer have to worry about the process, which runs significantly faster and smoother!