Want to Get Your Business More Profitable This Year? Try Going Paperless

Technology gives businesses powerful tools to stand out from the crowd. Investing in technology for the sake of technology won’t make any impact on your bottom line. A lot of businesses, particularly startups, make the mistake of going after technology that’s “sexy” but ultimately, provides them little benefit. However, using technology to serve your customer’s needs will surprise you with the financial returns it will bring your organization. Research shows that investing in customer experience has the potential to double your revenue within 36 months. It’s not a secret that paperless business is the future of the economy.

No matter which way you look at it, taking things digital means significant cost savings. It also increases efficiency, which comes with its own savings. Communications, of course, is often the loser of digital transformations. However, with the right cloud collaboration tool, your team can not only collaborate remotely as well as in-person, but can actually outperform office-based teams.

The cost savings alone is a reason to go paperless 

Let’s start with the obvious cost savings: printers and ink. It’s not unusual for small businesses to spend up to $1,000 a year on office supplies per employee. Going paperless nixes those costs outright. It might be challenging to digitize all paper-based processes in your organization at once, but even making invoicing alone paperless will bring you significant savings. 

Property Management Insider reported on the cost savings of going paperless, finding that some companies were able to cut their yearly budget by as much as $100,000 after switching to electronic invoicing over more traditional paper billing. A large company with many clients goes through massive amounts of paper. But there are also costs in efficiency when sticking to the old fashioned way. Waiting around for invoices from vendors slows down your processes, which can cost you business. At the same time, it extends employee hours, which you wind up paying for in overtime or morale.

Embracing a document management system is an amazing operations cost hack. Transferring paper-based processes to the cloud could give your organization an extra $1.2 million a year in paper and hardware savings, according to the Forrester research. This is the immediate result of going paperless, but your business will be able to get an even higher economic impact within three years. Organizations experienced benefits of $35.1 million over three years and reached their payback of investment 7 months after the go-live date.

Improves office efficiency 

Dealing with coworkers and customers is more efficient when you work with digital documents and tools. Advanced use of digital technologies by small businesses can drive greater revenue, according to research by Deloitte. In paperless business, it’s easier and faster to extract vital insights when you can view all data for a particular client or business issue in one place. 

Nothing is more frustrating than having to flip through dozens of files to find a rogue document or look up information not recorded digitally. There are few things that are more time-consuming, too. According to the Paperless Project, large organizations lose a document every 12 seconds. Another study found that the typical employee spends 30% to 40% of their time searching for information in paper documents. Digitizing documents saves  employees a massive amount of time that can be allocated for important tasks. When documents are stored digitally, employees can review, delegate, authorize, or transfer information with the click of the button.

Lumin PDF offers your employees a cozy place to centrally store documents. With custom access controls and the ability to create individual teams around certain files, organizing and accessing documents couldn’t be easier. Transitioning your files is simple, too. Just upload files from your computer or, if you’re already in the cloud, sync them up from Google Drive directly into Lumin. Then you’re good to go!  

Enhance team communication

Another advantage of paperless collaboration, especially given the current outlook for work in 2020, is the ability to communicate clearly and effectively around a project without being in the same physical location. No less than 43% of the US workforce is now working remotely and though that number will decline over the months ahead, it isn’t likely to ever go back to pre-pandemic levels. While there are clear benefits to be gained from a remote work model, there are downsides, as well. 

Primarily, losses come in communication. It's much easier to explain exactly what you mean in person than online, especially if it involves reviewing documents. Luckily, there are digital solutions. The Wall Street Journal recently reported on one study that found that small businesses with higher levels of digital engagement have greater growth potential. They were more likely to have experienced revenue growth over the past 12 months and have an increased likelihood of expecting growth in future. 

With cloud-based document storage and collaboration tools, employees are able to work on projects together remotely while having access to any information they may need. Lumin PDF allows your team to collaborate on the PDF document online from any place in the world. You can comment directly in the PDF as easily as in Google Docs. You can also edit, annotate, and sign PDF files without needing to convert them to .doc or go through multiple separate versions of the same file.  

Closing thoughts

Lumin PDF is a great place to start your digital (and financial) transformation. This cloud software replaces tedious work with PDF documents over efficient, money-saving digital processes. It works as a document management tool and facilitates clear remote collaboration around PDF files. 

Lumin PDF can be quickly synced with Google Drive so your documents will be always with you and your team. You’ll save money on paper-associated costs and your employees will thank you, too.