4 Document Management Best Practices
Document management is a powerful tool for removing excessive paper handling from your organization’s workflows. By keeping in mind the following best practices, you’ll reap the maximum benefit from your document management system.
1. Prioritize system automation
Take a moment to look at your current operations and determine where you want to invest your time and energy. Is the productivity of one specific department at the top of the list? Or are client-facing processes your priority? Consider a customer service document search that currently takes up to 48 hours; utilizing digital document management for that process can change your business’ response time from days to minutes. Focus your automation efforts on the area or tasks that will make the biggest impact and go from there.
2. Rethink paper-based workflows
When moving to digital document management, rethink your approach to the paper-based processes involved. With document automation, rules and algorithms can do much of the work that used to require human management. So, as you transition to document management, do more than just replicate your paper-based processes—redesign them. With some strategic thinking, document management software can transform your business workflows.
3. Index data strategically
Indexing is about capturing the document information that your users and programs will interface with—keywords, client names, dates, and more. When selecting document data to index, make it practical and useful. How will your end users be looking up the document? Choose fields that frame documents in ways that make the most sense for your business, and you’ll avoid bogging down the indexing process.
4. Track key metrics
This is a tree-falling-in-the-forest issue—you’ll only know how well document management is working for your business if you track the numbers. Understand what your goals are for digital document management, establish baselines with your current system, and track your progress toward these goals. With regular data reviews, you’ll learn exactly how much time is being saved by automating a given process, and whether or not you have further streamlining to do.
Document management can be transformative for your business, so be sure to follow these best practices to get the most out of your system. To learn more about document management, or for help optimizing your existing system, contact Infomax Office Systems today.
