Going fully paperless in a modern office is possible, but quite a challenge for most entrepreneurs. Jamie Garratt’s company Idea Rebel takes the “paperless” mantle seriously, forbidding everything from notepads to paper cups in its office, and turning down business from other companies who aren’t comfortable with wholly digital processes (like online signatures). You’ll also need to consider the innocuous sources of paper in your office, such as paper towels and toilet paper (you’ll go through over 20,000 sheets of it per year per person).
But what about a compromise in paperlessness? What if you took one key element of your business, such as your financial transactions, and made effort to make that paperless?
What Paperless Financial Transactions Look Like
Making the conversion to paperless financial transactions would force you to rethink the following operations, at a minimum:
- Credit card statements. Even in a mid-sized business, credit card statements can be notoriously thick, taking up many sheets of paper every month and burning through envelopes if sent by mail. Switching to paperless statements is easy for most banks and credit card providers, so it shouldn’t be problematic to switch.
- Invoices and bills. Just a few years ago, 53 percent of businesses still relied on paper-based invoicing processes, and businesses are slow to change. Your customers may not like the ideas of receiving and paying purely digital invoices, and it may be hard to get your vendors to switch to paperless billing—especially if they’re a big business or highly bureaucratic organization.
- Receipts. You’ll also need to consider smaller instances of paper use in your financial transactions, such as collecting and storing receipts for your in-person transactions. Fortunately, modern software makes it easier to scan in and organize those receipts.
- Payroll. You’ll need to streamline payroll as well, eliminating paper stubs and ensuring everyone works through direct deposit. Hopefully, your business is already at least partially on this system, since 96 percent of Americans are now paid through direct deposit.
Depending on your goals, you may also want to consolidate any previous paperwork you have, by converting it to a digital format.
The Benefits
The benefits, even for a paperless financial system, would be enormous:
- Lower costs. The average cost of a single paper invoice alone is about $12.90, including the costs of paper, sending and receiving, and manual effort spent on managing the invoice. Scale that up to every invoice your company sends, and every other instance of paper in your organization, and you could easily save thousands of dollars per year—even if you’re paying for software to automate the digital process for you.
- Less physical space occupied. You’ll also need less physical space in your office, since you won’t have to worry about keeping physical records of all your purchases. This is especially beneficial for businesses with years, or even decades of records on file.
- Environmental benefits. Don’t discount the environmental benefits of going paperless, either. Every 5 minutes, offices in the United States go through 15 million sheets of paper; reducing that demand even by a fraction can help preserve our natural environments. If you decide not to go paperless, at least commit to better recycling practices to offset the environmental burden of printing.
- Easier searchability. Once your records are fully digital, and in a central system that everyone can access, you’ll have an easier time searching for (and finding) the right documents, if and when you need them. It beats rifling through a filing cabinet that may or may not have been properly organized from the start.
Key Obstacles
There are a few key obstacles that prevent most companies from proceeding, however:
- Conversion. One of the most painstaking parts of the process is digitizing all your old files, but with the right process in place (including using the right scanning equipment, and everyone working together), it shouldn’t be the nightmarish task it seems to be on the surface.
- Employee transitions. Employees may also be reluctant to adopt the new system, especially if they’re used to the old one. Convincing them that the new system is faster and more efficient may be hard, since they’ll be forced to learn new procedures and routines.
- Complete commitment. Finally, you’ll have a hard time getting 100 percent commitment from your employees, partners, and vendors. Not everyone will be on board, and it’s hard to track down every sheet of paper used within a department.
Is It Worth It?
The benefits of going paperless, at least within your company’s accounting department, are too great to simply ignore. You might go through some growing pains as you get everything digitized, and get your staff up to speed on new policies, but when it’s all over, you’ll be saving both time and money (and helping the environment at the same time). It’s a less dramatic measure than going “fully” paperless, yet the rewards are substantial.