Category: Archiving

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Document management and your organisation’s paperwork

Document management is still a comparatively little-known idea, but one that has the potential to transform the office place. In an age in which the paperless office is a rarely-achieved ideal, the collection of technologies known as document processing (and the accounts department special case, invoice processing) can actually make this a reality.

Document management systems are highly effective collaboration tools. They allow people to store, exchange, modify and keep track of documents. There are also facilities to track the changes made and record different versions of documents. This allows many people to work on the same project, keeping it centrally without the need for many different versions or fragments that later have to be standardised and put together as a final product.

If you have paper documents, as most offices do, then there is obviously a gap between that reality and the fully online version to which you may aspire. Simply, it is hard to work across the two – sometimes having to deal with paper letters, memos and documents and sometimes with virtual ones. This is where document processing comes in. It is a set of technologies that turns physical documents to their electronic equivalents. Some of the simplest (and therefore cheapest) of these technologies involve just scanning-to-PDF: creating an image or other file out of a written document. However, at its most advanced it is possible to turn handwritten notes into editable files, like any other business document. These can then be saved into your document management system and treated like any other electronic document.

Document management and the document processing that makes bridging the gap between ‘real’ and virtual possible are therefore extremely useful technologies. Invoice processing applies this to your accounts department, allowing you to turn physical invoices into electronic ones. This is important, since many suppliers and organisations will still submit paper invoices, and these can easily be treated differently to the ones you receive electronically. They can get forgotten or mislaid, with implications for your relationships with your suppliers and for your reputation. If you are aiming for a paperless office, whether for financial or environmental reasons, then this is an effective way to help bring that about. The solution you opt for will depend upon the nature of your organisation and its needs, as well as its budget, but the number of alternatives available means there is something for everyone.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Document management: the first step to a more productive office

Not so long ago, every document in every office took physical form. Documents were always paper, and had been for nearly 2,000 years. Then, just a few decades back, desktop computers really started to take off. Now, documents could be created on the screen and printed to produce a hard copy – like everything else in the office. But as computers grew even more common and with the rise of the internet, there came a point when documents no longer had to be printed to be distributed – they could be stored online or on a network, in the office’s document management system. Now, there were two separate systems: paper and virtual, and the problems this entailed – and still entails – could be serious. It can be messy, wasteful and inefficient. Employees trained in one system may not be very familiar with the other. Documents can get lost in the paper system, perhaps getting buried on one person’s desk, or taken out of the office and never brought back. Document processing aims to bring the two systems together, bridging the considerable gap between a paper-based office and a paper-less office. Invoice processing does the same for the accounts department – an invaluable asset in an age where some invoices are sent through the mail and some are sent electronically, by bacs.

The technology used to achieve this has come a long way in the last few years. At one point, the best you could hope for was a scanned image – a picture file of a document that could not be edited, and certainly not using a word processor. More recently, optical character recognition has enabled printed documents to be turned back into editable computer files. Further changes mean that even handwritten letters can be converted into Word or other documents. The technology typically takes a while to ‘learn’ to read handwriting well, but boasts accuracy rates of upwards of 97 percent.

This means that document processing is now extremely reliable and effective, and when combined with a good document management system can make for a much more efficient office. Everyone can access the documents they need – and the documents will always be accessible to those who have permission to read them. Similarly, invoice processing means that your accounts department is less likely to miss a payment – something that always undermines a firm’s reputation with suppliers and clients.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

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Document management – the office revolution

document management is truly a revolution hitting the modern workplace.  Piles of paperwork and millions of pounds lost from human error could soon become a thing of the past.  By way of explanation, a document management system is a computer system or set of computer programs used to track and store electronic documents and/or images of paper documents.  This allows accounts payable departments to handle document processing and invoice processing in a much more efficient way than ever before.

A document management system is usually also capable of keeping track of the different versions of documents created by different users, which is called history tracking.  The term has some overlap with the concepts of content management systems.  It is often seen as a component of enterprise content management systems, and is related to digital asset management, document imaging, workflow systems and records management systems.

The move towards this kind of technology began in the 1980s, when a number of vendors began developing systems to manage paper-based documents.  For many offices, the sheer number of paper documents that were piling up was becoming something of a problem.  The new systems dealt with paper documents, which included not only printed and published documents, but also photographs and prints.  Later on, developers began to write a second type of system which could manage electronic documents.  This meant that all documents or files created on computers and stored on local file systems could be controlled electronically.  The earliest electronic management systems managed either proprietary type files, or a limited number of file formats.  Many of these systems became known as document imaging systems, because they focussed on the capture, storage, indexing and retrieval of image file formats.  The systems enabled an organization to capture faxes and forms, to save copies of the documents as images, and to store the image files in a repository for security and quick retrieval.

The establishment of complex and effective document management systems has made a real difference in improving processes in many modern offices.  The sheer convenience of automating document processing systems leaves one wondering why it did not become commonplace years ago.  For anybody whose job involves invoice processing, this certainly seems to be something worth sitting up and taking notice of.  The only problem may be for filing cabinet manufacturers, as storing piles of paper documents is becoming increasingly unnecessary.  Perhaps they will need to think about diversifying and creating products to support electronic products.

Please visit http://www.bottomline.co.uk/ for further information about this topic.

http://www.bottomline.co.uk/

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