Automating reports and distributing documents electronically is both good for the planet and great for the bottom line.

By Chris Smith

We don't have detailed demographics on all our MC Press Online readers, but my guess is there aren't too many who were working on computers in the early 1960s when IBM coined the term "spool file."

The acronym stands for Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On-Line (SPOOL), but folklore has it that the name actually was conceived after the term "spool" came into widespread use, since a spool is what is used to wind magnetic tape.

Universal payment platforms provide a range of options for paper payments, electronic payments, and the distribution of payment documentation in paper or electronic form.

By Mark Firmin

Throughout the corporate world, managements are waging a war on paper. The new medium for corporate "paperwork" (transactions ranging from bids and contracts, sales and purchase orders, documents and reports, to financial settlements and more) is electronic.

Workflow and BPM can be used to automate tasks, send documents through an organization, and ensure that important documents don't get held up anywhere.

That purchase order you requested has been sitting on your manager's desk for the last week. Your manager is on vacation and will be for another three days. The deadline is tomorrow, and it must get approved and move to the next person, who will send it to Purchasing for order placement. How much longer can you wait? How much longer can Purchasing wait? How much longer can the rest of your organization afford to be held up?

Needless to say, this is not how any business should run. That's why companies have been depending on business processes for years. These practices organize key processes and ensure that they are being followed and that your business stays running.