9 Tips – How To Create A Paperless Office

What are the top 10 tips to create a paperless office? The term “paperless office” is around 50 years old, yet even today in 2016 many small businesses admit they aren’t entirely sure what one is, while those in the know aren’t sure how to implement one.

A paperless office is the stuff that dreams are made of: They help companies waste less paper, save time, and they boost productivity. So why aren’t more of us creating them?

Usually, it’s the case that employees are so stuck in their ways that they insist on using printers out of convenience. If you’re looking to implement your very own, here are our top 10 tips to create a paperless office.

Make Printing Less Convenient

If printing was less convenient, fewer of your employees would be encouraged to keep on printing.

You can make printing less convenient by removing some of the printers in your office.

If you must use a printer, you can save on paper waste by printing both sides.

Bank Online

You can pay your bills online in an effort to make the transition to a paperless office, and you can also request that your bank sends your company online statements to your email.

Avoid Physical Signing Printed Documents

There is less and less need for physical signing printed documents, and most companies probably wouldn’t be able to tell you why they still use so many of them.

Electronic signatures are simple and straightforward, and can help you to create a paperless office.

Scan Receipts And Bills With Your Smartphone

Bills and receipts take up a lot of paper, and checking them over can take up a lot of your time. If you have a smartphone, you can now scan them with it. Not only that, you can also scan your business cards too. WINNING!

Scanning receipts allows you to store them all in the same file which can be organised in any category you choose (date, amount etc). Not only does it keep you organised for tax time, it also lets you track your spending, and makes it easier when finding receipts for a store return, or for reimbursement purposes.

FYI – ATO accepts scanned receipts.

Share Documents Online

Remember the days when you had to hand every single employee sheets of paper during a meeting so that everyone has access to the same document?

In 2016, you can now share all your documents online. Google Docs is particularly popular and really user friendly.

Request PDFs

If you’re waiting for an employee to hand you an important business document, you no longer need it submitted via fax or handed to you personally. Instead, you can request that everything is sent to you in PDF format online.

Use Online Fax Providers

Some clients will persist with the fax machine. To avoid unnecessary faxes, use an online fax provider that will email your faces directly to your inbox.

Invest In A File Transfer System

No doubt your office will need to transfer and store large files from time to time. To do this without relying on traditional methods, you can download and install an online file-hosting, transfer and sharing program such as Dropbox.

Reward Your Employees

You can’t create a paperless office unless your employees are singing from the same hymn sheet as you. If your employees are reluctant to make the change, offer reward systems for anyone who helps this transition period easier.

The team at Easy Consulting are firm believers in building a better world, one step at a time! We also like to help wherever we can in making things easy for companies all around the world. We do this by getting small businesses noticed, and larger businesses outranking their competition online. Contact us today and we’ll let you know our secrets to social media marketing and SEO strategies.