Save Time and Labor

Traditional Paper
Based Filing System		 Electronic Document
Management System
A paper based document system of rows and rows of filing cabinets takes up considerable floor space. The long term archive of ‘inactive’ documents is likely a number of storage boxes in the basement that are difficult to access. To increase storage you need to add filing cabinets for which floor space is not always available. All documents are stored in an electronic database on your server or in the cloud. The database expands automatically as needed. If you need more storage you can simply add additional hard disks without increasing the physical foot print. In a cloud implementation, you don’t have to do anything.

Save Office Space

Traditional Paper
Based Filing System		 Electronic Document
Management System
A paper based document system of rows and rows of filing cabinets takes up considerable floor space. The long term archive of ‘inactive’ documents is likely a number of storage boxes in the basement that are difficult to access. To increase storage you need to add filing cabinets for which floor space is not always available. All documents are stored in an electronic database on your server or in the cloud. The database expands automatically as needed. If you need more storage you can simply add additional hard disks without increasing the physical foot print. In a cloud implementation, you don’t have to do anything.

Fast Retrieval

Traditional Paper
Based Filing System		 Electronic Document
Management System
It can take minutes to retrieve a document from a file cabinet. Much longer if the document was not filed properly and assuming that you can find it at all. An archived ‘inactive’ document could take hours to find. Electronic retrieval of a document takes less than a second. Even archived documents can be retrieved in mere seconds. No need to dig through storage boxes in a musty basement.

Controlled Access

Traditional Paper
Based Filing System		 Electronic Document
Management System
Unless you lock all file cabinets, it is difficult to control who has access to the file cabinets, let alone who can see the documents. And locked filing cabinets makes retrieving documents even more of a slow, tedious process. In an electronic document management system, you have full control over who can access the system and who can see or retrieve which documents. In addition, audit trails will give you a complete history of which documents were retrieved and by whom.

Compliance

Traditional Paper
Based Filing System		 Electronic Document
Management System
In a paper based system, a 60+ year document retention requirement means storing inactive documents in boxes in the basement or off-site. This practice makes the information difficult to access and vulnerable to flooding, fire, and other physical damage. The required space for storing these archives can also become expensive. Complying with specific document retention requirements is easy with an electronic document management system. Documents are stored in an electronic database that, if properly maintained, can last for decades. With the rapidly decreasing cost of electronic storage, the cost of these archives is far lower than physical storage of paper documents.

Disaster Proof

Traditional Paper
Based Filing System		 Electronic Document
Management System
A paper based document system is vulnerable to flooding, fire, tornado damage, vandalism and the like. It is expensive to protect an archive from these natural disasters. If properly managed, an electronic document management system is impervious to disasters and vandalism. Backups can be made on a regular basis and automatically stored at an off-site location.

Document Integrity

Traditional Paper
Based Filing System		 Electronic Document
Management System
Paper documents are vulnerable to unauthorized alterations that cannot be traced. It is very difficult to determine if paper document is the original or if it has been tampered with. Electronic documents are virtually tamper-proof. Through the secure access and audit trail, there is a complete log of who viewed or retrieved which document and if any changes were made.