2017 Resolution: Never Lose an Important Document Again. Ever. Really.

In the law according to Murphy, the more important a document, the greater the chance it gets misfiled or lost.

You know the one. It’s time-critical. It will make you look like an idiot in front of an important client or auditor. And it’s causing enterprise-wide chaos. Like the spec change that never got to the production floor. The environmental compliance data your regulator wants by noon. The signed non-disclosure form from your bright new (and now newly vamoosed) salesperson.
With the sheer amount of paperwork today’s business generates, it’s little wonder more documents DON’T get lost. Many businesses still stuff important paper in an ever-growing farm of filing cabinets. Others use their individual email software to house and organize things electronically. Still others save documents into folders on their PC or a server somewhere.
If that’s your world today, know that you never have to lose an important document again. That’s what document management software is all about. Here’s how document management software can make a “nice to have” resolution a reality that rocks your world (in a very good way).

Instant Filing, Finding, Sharing: A good document management system can help you capture, secure and control all your important documents electronically in one place, while making them easy to find and share with a keystroke. That includes anything paper; printed or generated from your ERP system: an Email; a Word Document; spreadsheet; report; drawing; a picture and more.

A Central Repository: You’ll give your employees one place to look, rather than forcing them to seek what they need from multiple possible locations. No more hunting all over the place.

Reduced Risk: Documents stored electronically are readily protected by good system backup

practices so that in the event of disaster, you can be back up and running quickly with little or no loss.

Improved Security, Permissions & Protection: Document management offers security to prevent unwanted intrusion or tampering with files. But it also allows easy access to those who need a document (or class of documents) to perform their function.

Easy, Customizable Search: The key to being able to find something later is classifying it predictably, consistently and accurately before you put it away. A good system will help you to classify and tag your docs, plus validate the information that we mere humans need to supply against other sources (like your ERP system) to ensure accuracy. Document management software allows you to tag, add keywords and cross-reference documents and files according to your specific business process and file types, for a fast, easily searched trail.

Multi-Dimensional Ways to Find Docs: When people are given multiple avenues to locate what they need, they have a much better chance of finding it fast. Your system should allow for any individual document to be accessed in multiple ways, and via multiple paths (or dimensions). This makes people more effective, and knocks down those silos of information.

Fast & Intuitive: Electronic document management lets you respond at the speed of business, reducing the time involved in filing and finding documents (a cost estimated at an average of $120 per lost document). That cost reduction has hard value and immediate impact.

There you have it: the simple answer to confounding Murphy and never losing a document again. Here’s to a great 2017!