Companies try to be paperless and reduce paper consumption not only for the sake of our planet but also for economic reasons. However, it’s easier said than done. Limiting paper is very difficult, employees are used to traditional documentation. Fortunately, technology and automation come with help.
Do you know that the US alone consumes 30% (1) of the world’s paper (has less than 5% of the world’s population)? For every dollar spent on printing, companies incur another 6$ (2) in handling and distributing the paper. 84 percent of businesses that do implement a paperless system see a return on investment in less than 18 months (3).
Legal and financial departments use the most paper, followed by HR. And the main reason that companies are stuck in the paper is… lack of management initiatives and accustomed to reading traditional documentation. Organizing work so that you don’t have to print is not easy, but possible. The main thing is to provide such a convenient alternative that will make nobody want to go back to paper.
How business applications replace paper
Thanks to business applications we can organize processes so that paper is not needed. Our clients successfully transfer manually managed processes to the application, completely eliminating paper (e.g. requests for delegations, financial statements, invoices, surveys, clearance slips). Employees quickly find out that working without paper is more convenient – they don’t have to apply changes manually, photocopying and sending documents by email. They perform all tasks in one place, logging in to Qalcwise platform via a browser or on the phone.
Not many people know that there is no obligation to keep paper copies. There are two ways – in the application, the last step of the settlement may be to generate a summary, e.g. PDF and deliver it to the finance department along with the scan of original documents already attached. The second way is to ask the tax office for an interpretation if an image of the document in a format that cannot be changed is sufficient for the purposes of the audit. Most often, the interpretation is positive.
Using business apps in the cloud reduces paper, costs and handling time. All employees can work together to change documents and make corrections, fill in the forms online and report expenses by scanning – not copying bills. It also speeds up the waiting time for acceptance – electronic circulation makes document processing much simpler. The applications mean that process support is up to 90% faster!
Does your company want to join the #paperless movement? If so contact us and we will help you get through digitization! Send an email to qalcwise@qalcwise.com
Read more:
- How to go completely paperless in HR?
- Get rid of paper in accounting in a few days!
- How to create paperless in-house Legal Department
Sources:
(1) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-consumption-habits/
(2) The InformIT report
(3) AIIM Report
