08
Tue, Oct
2 New Articles

10 Things You Need to Know About Document Management

Typography
  • Smaller Small Medium Big Bigger
  • Default Helvetica Segoe Georgia Times

Document Management Systems (DMS) have been in existence for years, decades even, and there is a wealth of information out there. But what do you really need to know?

 

Here's a top 10 list to get you up to speed on why document management is a highly relevant and powerful solution to help you meet many of the business challenges of today.

1. Lack of Document Management Is Costing You Big

In order to gain a competitive advantage, you need to work as efficiently as possible. Every dollar spent on the operational side of your business is one less dollar that you can spend innovating your offering and ultimately growing revenue. By not taking advantage of the savings document management can provide, it's costing you in a measurable way, and your competitors who are working efficiently have a distinct advantage.

 

You may be surprised to learn that processing a single paper invoice manually instead of electronically with a document management system can cost you an additional $32 and add a full 23 days of processing time per document processed. Think about how many invoices your company processes in one month alone, and the dollars add up frighteningly fast. Document management also eliminates the costs associated with buying paper, the need for storage space for printed documents, the necessity of fax machines and copiers, and the occurrence of lost documents.

2. Good Document Management Systems Tightly Integrate with Your Business Applications (ERP, etc.)

Document management systems can integrate tightly with your existing business applications with remarkable fluidity. Most integrations will allow search and retrieval of documents directly from ERP screens you are working with daily. This makes the process of managing your documents easy and fast. The best solutions will also allow you to access your underlying application data, enabling you to auto-index documents and route documents throughout your organization for recorded approvals.

3. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Works with Remarkable Accuracy and Saves You Time

OCR works not only to capture your documents into electronic format, but also to recognize characters and capture them digitally. This technology has evolved to be extremely accurate and efficient. The process works as follows: use any document scanner or multi-functional peripheral to automatically capture the index fields of your documents and have them recorded in your document management system. The technology that exists today can also ensure accuracy of capture with database lookups and even deliver that info into enterprise content management (ECM) systems. These systems can combine OCR with barcode recognition and utilize readily available scripts to find, recognize, and classify documents and validate data.

4. Workflow Is a Powerful Function You Can't Do Without

"Workflow" is a term that is thrown about casually but is often misunderstood. The workflow function, as it relates to document management, is the application of the policies and procedures you currently use for your paper files applied to your electronic documents. Once you get a taste of the convenience this powerful feature offers, it will surely be something hard to live without.

 

Once documents are captured electronically in your document management system, they can be electronically routed to the appropriate person for approval. Workflow gives you better visibility into the approval process by notifying you of where certain documents are in the process and letting users focus on the task at hand without worrying about following up on a purchase request, check request, or order, to name a few. The electronic trail is typically available for authorized users and helps guarantee compliance with industry regulations and audits.

5. Document Management Is a Critical Component of Effective Disaster Recovery Planning

When people talk about disaster recovery, often the concern is about the servers in your office and what would happen to them and your data in the event of a disaster, like a fire, tornado, earthquake, or any other catastrophic event. But what about the paper? If your invoices and other records are not part of your plan, your business will surely be impacted. Many businesses that have a disaster inflicted upon them, in worst-case scenarios, quite literally never recover. In best-case scenarios, it can take months, if not years, to get back to business as usual. Don't let this happen to you, and don't go through the expense of duplicating all of your documents and paying for storage off-site; this is very expensive and time-consuming. With a document management system, all of your documents are already in electronic format and can be backed up in electronic format quite easily and stored securely in another location at a fraction of the cost.

6. Document Management Markedly Improves the Customer Service You Provide

It's not hard to imagine: you're a customer on the phone with an inquiry about an invoice or order that needs to be referenced. The customer service representative you are speaking with puts you on hold or tells you that they need to call you back while they try to locate a document in a file cabinet down the hall or even in an off-site storage facility (an off-site document can typically take 48 hours to retrieve). Not what a customer really wants to hear! Instead, using a document management system, they do a simple search and pull up an image of the actual document and all its history with just a few key strokes from their computer. It's pretty clear which experience enhances your customer services and which detracts from it.

7. Document Management Makes Audits a Breeze

Imagine that audits can take place without having to present and sift through actual paper. The image of accountants huddled in a conference room with boxes upon boxes of paper can be stricken from our consciousness. With electronic document management, auditors will be able to access any document they need with a simple electronic query. Consider too that greater access to documents and information about them equals less hours to conduct the audit, which should lead to significant cost savings for you.

8. Document Management Helps Protect You Against Liability

In this age of increased regulation, it is vitally important to hold onto to your documents for as long as you need to but not so long as to open yourself up to liability down the road. Walking this fine line is easier when your documents are readily available through your electronic document management system but are then destroyed by rule at the end of their required "life." A good document management system can ensure both retention and purge.

9. Document Management Enables Your Business to Grow for Less

Because document management makes you more efficient and automates many manual processes, you will see that you can do more with your existing staff in your current physical office. Take those resources you would have needed to apply to accommodate the increase in orders and paper coming into your company and invest them in something that will lead to additional revenue, not in operations that merely help you keep pace with the growth of your operations.

10. Total ROI on a Document Management System Can Be Had in Under a Year

While pricing will vary from vendor to vendor, you should be able to find a solution that gives you 100 percent ROI in one year or less. Document management touches so many cost-intensive processes that you'll save fast and big:

  • Savings can be had by reducing business operating costs like photocopying, postal mailing, and courier services.
  • You'll see increases in productivity, measured by man-hours saved not handling paper (standing at fax machines, looking for lost or misplaced files, etc.).
  • Expect increases in cash flow by taking advantage of vendor discounts and being able to invoice earlier.
  • Improve customer service, which will result in higher levels of satisfied customers through better and faster access to information and faster internal communications.

as/400, os/400, iseries, system i, i5/os, ibm i, power systems, 6.1, 7.1, V7, V6R1

Brian Smith

Brian D. Smith is the Director of Marketing for IntelliChief, where he is responsible for all global campaign and product marketing, branding, marketing communications, and public relations.
 
Brian has 15 years of marketing experience within the software and technology space. As the Director of Marketing at Infinata (a Financial Times Group Company), he was responsible for driving sales opportunity growth. Prior to that, Brian was Ecommerce Marketing Programs Manager at Parametric Technology Company (PTC) and held various internet marketing positions at Ipswitch, Inc., software developers of WS_FTP File Transfer, WhatsUp Gold Network Management, and IMail Server Messaging solutions. Brian has a bachelor's degree in politics from Ithaca College.
 
IntelliChief is the leading provider of Paperless Process Management (PPM) solutions for the IBM i (System i, iSeries, AS/400) enterprise. With decades of expertise in the market and seamless integration with leading ERP software vendors, IntelliChief takes companies of all sizes paperless with a typical ROI of less than one year. Users can create, capture, manage, archive, retrieve, and distribute mission-critical documents directly from their familiar ERP screens, eliminating the need for filing cabinets, storage facilities, fax machines, copiers, and paper files.

 

For more information about IntelliChief, visit www.intellichief.com. To contact Brian Smith, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS

LATEST COMMENTS

Support MC Press Online

$

Book Reviews

Resource Center

  • SB Profound WC 5536 Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application. You can find Part 1 here. In Part 2 of our free Node.js Webinar Series, Brian May teaches you the different tooling options available for writing code, debugging, and using Git for version control. Brian will briefly discuss the different tools available, and demonstrate his preferred setup for Node development on IBM i or any platform. Attend this webinar to learn:

  • SB Profound WP 5539More than ever, there is a demand for IT to deliver innovation. Your IBM i has been an essential part of your business operations for years. However, your organization may struggle to maintain the current system and implement new projects. The thousands of customers we've worked with and surveyed state that expectations regarding the digital footprint and vision of the company are not aligned with the current IT environment.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT Generic IBM announced the E1080 servers using the latest Power10 processor in September 2021. The most powerful processor from IBM to date, Power10 is designed to handle the demands of doing business in today’s high-tech atmosphere, including running cloud applications, supporting big data, and managing AI workloads. But what does Power10 mean for your data center? In this recorded webinar, IBMers Dan Sundt and Dylan Boday join IBM Power Champion Tom Huntington for a discussion on why Power10 technology is the right strategic investment if you run IBM i, AIX, or Linux. In this action-packed hour, Tom will share trends from the IBM i and AIX user communities while Dan and Dylan dive into the tech specs for key hardware, including:

  • Magic MarkTRY the one package that solves all your document design and printing challenges on all your platforms. Produce bar code labels, electronic forms, ad hoc reports, and RFID tags – without programming! MarkMagic is the only document design and print solution that combines report writing, WYSIWYG label and forms design, and conditional printing in one integrated product. Make sure your data survives when catastrophe hits. Request your trial now!  Request Now.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericForms of ransomware has been around for over 30 years, and with more and more organizations suffering attacks each year, it continues to endure. What has made ransomware such a durable threat and what is the best way to combat it? In order to prevent ransomware, organizations must first understand how it works.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericIT security is a top priority for businesses around the world, but most IBM i pros don’t know where to begin—and most cybersecurity experts don’t know IBM i. In this session, Robin Tatam explores the business impact of lax IBM i security, the top vulnerabilities putting IBM i at risk, and the steps you can take to protect your organization. If you’re looking to avoid unexpected downtime or corrupted data, you don’t want to miss this session.

  • SB HelpSystems ROBOT GenericCan you trust all of your users all of the time? A typical end user receives 16 malicious emails each month, but only 17 percent of these phishing campaigns are reported to IT. Once an attack is underway, most organizations won’t discover the breach until six months later. A staggering amount of damage can occur in that time. Despite these risks, 93 percent of organizations are leaving their IBM i systems vulnerable to cybercrime. In this on-demand webinar, IBM i security experts Robin Tatam and Sandi Moore will reveal:

  • FORTRA Disaster protection is vital to every business. Yet, it often consists of patched together procedures that are prone to error. From automatic backups to data encryption to media management, Robot automates the routine (yet often complex) tasks of iSeries backup and recovery, saving you time and money and making the process safer and more reliable. Automate your backups with the Robot Backup and Recovery Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAManaging messages on your IBM i can be more than a full-time job if you have to do it manually. Messages need a response and resources must be monitored—often over multiple systems and across platforms. How can you be sure you won’t miss important system events? Automate your message center with the Robot Message Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAThe thought of printing, distributing, and storing iSeries reports manually may reduce you to tears. Paper and labor costs associated with report generation can spiral out of control. Mountains of paper threaten to swamp your files. Robot automates report bursting, distribution, bundling, and archiving, and offers secure, selective online report viewing. Manage your reports with the Robot Report Management Solution. Key features include:

  • FORTRAFor over 30 years, Robot has been a leader in systems management for IBM i. With batch job creation and scheduling at its core, the Robot Job Scheduling Solution reduces the opportunity for human error and helps you maintain service levels, automating even the biggest, most complex runbooks. Manage your job schedule with the Robot Job Scheduling Solution. Key features include:

  • LANSA Business users want new applications now. Market and regulatory pressures require faster application updates and delivery into production. Your IBM i developers may be approaching retirement, and you see no sure way to fill their positions with experienced developers. In addition, you may be caught between maintaining your existing applications and the uncertainty of moving to something new.

  • LANSAWhen it comes to creating your business applications, there are hundreds of coding platforms and programming languages to choose from. These options range from very complex traditional programming languages to Low-Code platforms where sometimes no traditional coding experience is needed. Download our whitepaper, The Power of Writing Code in a Low-Code Solution, and:

  • LANSASupply Chain is becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. From raw materials for manufacturing to food supply chains, the journey from source to production to delivery to consumers is marred with inefficiencies, manual processes, shortages, recalls, counterfeits, and scandals. In this webinar, we discuss how:

  • The MC Resource Centers bring you the widest selection of white papers, trial software, and on-demand webcasts for you to choose from. >> Review the list of White Papers, Trial Software or On-Demand Webcast at the MC Press Resource Center. >> Add the items to yru Cart and complet he checkout process and submit

  • Profound Logic Have you been wondering about Node.js? Our free Node.js Webinar Series takes you from total beginner to creating a fully-functional IBM i Node.js business application.

  • SB Profound WC 5536Join us for this hour-long webcast that will explore:

  • Fortra IT managers hoping to find new IBM i talent are discovering that the pool of experienced RPG programmers and operators or administrators with intimate knowledge of the operating system and the applications that run on it is small. This begs the question: How will you manage the platform that supports such a big part of your business? This guide offers strategies and software suggestions to help you plan IT staffing and resources and smooth the transition after your AS/400 talent retires. Read on to learn: