March 31st, 2010 
Andrew Virender Understanding and acting upon document management can make a difference in any organization. We would like to introduce you to the basic fundamentals of how to use document management to help increase your business efficiency.
Document management can be defined as the capture, storage and retrieval of documents. Even without an electronic system, your organization still has some method of performing these processes daily. However, too often do these processes take longer than necessary, wasting time that could be geared toward other important business tasks.
Documents come in different forms. For example, invoices may begin as electronic records within the accounting system of a vendor. They are printed and mailed to the appropriate destination, in the form of a hard paper copy. Although both of these documents are directly related, they are stored differently.
Besides invoices, documents such as contracts, acceptance documents and delivery receipts also come in electronic and paper form, not to mention, are processes in different kinds of systems and places. They might be processed in different departments or locations of a business, stored in multiple file cabinets, or even mistakenly sit on someone’s desk longer than they should.
What if an employee needed to gather all of these documents for review? The process of tracking down all information, the correct order of the documents, determine if the invoice was properly paid, and so on, can be a grueling and time consuming process. Then on top of that, let’s say there was a problem. Someone didn’t review or sign off where they should have. Now that employee has to track down the source of the issue and find resolutions…. More wasted time.
With an electronic document management system, all documents are in a single location. They are electronically captured, organized and easy to find at any time. It’s as simple as scanning paper documents into the system, where they are directly stored or sent through a workflow to the next person in the review or approval process. With such a system, the paper and electronic documents are properly tied together, with the paper document, then no longer needed.
As they are placed within the system, the documents can be indexed by department, vendor, purchase order or any other appropriate attribute. Because they are stored within electronic folders and categorized by document characteristics, users have the ability to search through the system and easily retrieve the documents they need based upon different search criteria.
With the implementation of a document management system, your organization no longer needs to worry about lost documents or wasted time. With one secure location, employees from remote offices can access any document in no time at all. Such a system makes everyone more productive and able to stay on task, shifting the focus from searching through file cabinets to actually resolving the issue or task at hand.
Curious about online document management, then visit DocuVantage to read ourdocument management tutorial.
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