From Guest Blogger Mary Ann Keel: Go Green, Go Paperless – 5 Easy Tips
Going paperless is a great thing for your business for numerous reasons. The amount of paper spent in offices is more than enough to make eco-friendly people frown. Still, environmental awareness is not the only reason why most companies switch to a paperless practice. Going green and embracing a paperless practice saves a lot of money, time, space and nerves and increases the productivity of your business. Thankfully, technology provides us with an abundance of smart tools that can help with the transition to a slightly more “green” business.
Do you want to go paperless? Read these 5 tips to see how to make it happen – and don’t forget to recycle the paper you don’t need!
Using the benefits of network
You can always share important files with your managers, colleagues and clients without printing them. There are many applications that enable file sharing free of charge. Google Docs enables you to work simultaneously with your colleagues on a document or spreadsheet and you decide who can see and make the changes in the file.
Basecamp and Trello are not just for file sharing – they are excellent web-based applications that enable communication between team members, creating to-do lists and tracking different phases of projects. Dropbox is another perfect file transfer system. If you’re a manager, you can create separate folders for each employee and they can just drag and drop their work in the assigned folder when they are finished. The basic account is free but you have to pay a monthly fee for upgrades and more storage space.
Getting the right equipment
Investing in the right technology may be expensive, but only at the beginning – it will pay off later. Also, no business can function without computers and associated equipment so you have to make that investment anyway. Scanners are vital for going paperless – it is best to equip your office with a multifunctional device such as a photocopier that can fax, scan and print documents.
If you are a business owner, you probably hire experts for transcription services. Thankfully, nobody uses typewriters anymore and speech can be easily converted to an electronic text document. You can always tell your typists to deliver you files via email or any other means of file transfer to prevent waste of paper.
Use apps for taking notes
There is no need to use your scheduler and paper notebook to organize your to-do lists, thoughts and ideas. There are plenty of apps to do so and they are available on all possible platforms – PC, Mac, iPad and smartphone. Post-it notes have become outdated and impractical compared to these outstanding apps that can easily organize your work and thoughts.
Evernote is an amazing and extremely popular app that enables creating checklists, text, audio and picture notes. It allows you to easily organize notes into notebooks and offer fast access to your pool of ideas. The basic account is free, while Premium accounts are available for a monthly or yearly fee.
Online payments
Online bill paying is a marvelous thing for all people who want to save their money and time. You get to do everything without leaving the office and with several clicks of your mouse. This way, you are not paying for postage, envelopes and you’re sparing a significant amount of your employees’ time.
It is much easier to manage all the mailings, invoices and checks if you use the web. It is fast, safe and easy to track all business finances. Also, most banks will provide you with paperless statements and incentives. If your business involves giving receipts to your customers and receiving payments, you can do it easily via email and apps such as Square.
Create multiple backups
A disadvantage of a paperless business is that you depend on electric power, internet and hardware. Advantage – no more piles of papers that occupy precious office space and no more digging through documents manually. To prevent any problems that may occur due to the dependence on technology, back up your files on separate hard drives and the cloud.
One more piece of advice – name and organize your files properly. Take care when naming files so that documents can be easily found. Create a system of organizing and searching files that will be simple and understandable to every team member. Only then will you be able to increase productivity and your paperless business will run smoothly.
