Reasons you need electronic document management.
Learn about electronic document management and how it can benefit your consulting business. Explore the advantages of electronic document management and its positive impact on your consulting business.
As a consultant, you’re likely juggling several clients, projects, and deadlines all at once. That means you probably have a mountain of documents, all for different purposes, saved in different places.
What is an electronic document management system?
An electronic document management system centralizes all of your documents so that you can search for, save, reference, and repurpose those mountains of files. Learn how electronic document management can help your consulting business become more efficient, organized, and productive.
Challenges that electronic record management solves.
If you’ve ever been overwhelmed by mountains of paperwork or even lost an important document, you should consider implementing electronic record management. Here’s a short breakdown of the issues this practice can solve:
- Cost-effective. Save money — and space — on physical file storage, as well as document printing, scanning, and shredding. With everything uploaded to an electronic filing system, your only expense is the actual software.
- Secure. Electronic records minimize the risks of physical documents, which can include losing papers and having them stolen or accidentally recycled. With electronic storage, you’ll always have a backup, even if your computer catches fire.
- Efficient. You can work more efficiently when you have all your documents organized in one centralized place. Want to copy an invoice template or merge documents to create a portfolio for a prospective client? It’s all stored and easy to find and repurpose, resulting in less work (but hopefully more business) for you.
- Best practices. Norms and regulations in your industry likely dictate how long you should keep files and what kind of files you need to keep for auditing purposes. Using electronic document management ensures you’re archiving files for as long as they’re needed, protecting you from any legal liability.
Create a process around electronic document management.
One of the biggest tips for electronic record keeping is creating a process around everything that’s easy to follow.
You can create an efficient and robust process around electronic document management to keep your files organized, accessible, and protected. Follow these tips to start creating your own process:
- Know what you need. Think about the types of documents you will be dealing with and who will need access to them once organized. Considering these things will help you choose the right system, software, and tools later on.
- Choose the right tools. It’s very important to select the tool that best suits your needs. Features like search capabilities and version history tracking can be key to helping you stay organized.
- Keep naming conventions consistent. Having a consistent naming convention system ensures that all your files are easy to identify and retrieve.
Streamline your enterprise document management.
Whether it’s compressing PDF files or documents to upload, working on documents directly in the cloud, or securely sharing and signing paperwork, learn more about how Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Acrobat online services can blend seamlessly with your electronic document management system.
