The paperless office - promised since the first desktop computers started appearing in the 1980s - has yet to become a reality for most companies. Despite the increasing use of computers in all types of businesses, a good portion of most day-to-day work is still paper-based. In addition, basic human behavior works against a truly paperless office: employees will always want to print documents for more careful study or to bring to meetings. For now, the perfect paperless office system remains an elusive goal.

Despite these challenges, you can drastically reduce the amount of paper documents your business depends on by choosing a document management system. The term "document management" (DM) covers a range of systems for managing paper and electronic files. To work towards a paperless office, a more specific term is "document imaging systems" - they include tools to help you convert paper records into electronic files.

Benefits of a paperless office solution

One of the biggest benefits of getting rid of your paper files is the cost savings. If it takes five minutes to retrieve and replace a paper file and an employee works with ten paper files per day, that's 216 hours a year - over five weeks' time - spent walking files around. At $20/hour, that's $4300 per year. A system that lets employees find and work with those documents without ever leaving their desks can instantly slash those costs.

DM provides additional cost savings by eliminating paper records. Converting records rooms into usable office space can let you make much better use of expensive real estate, and you may be able to eliminate warehousing costs entirely.

Other benefits include increased security, better disaster recovery protection, environmental benefits and remote access for your important documents.

In addition, some companies are almost being forced to adopt DM by laws that govern the safekeeping of data, such as Sarbanes-Oxley in the financial industry and HIPPA in the medical field. Document management systems are the best way to ensure compliance with strict security and record-keeping rules.

What about your existing documents?

Implementing a paperless office system doesn't mean your old paper records are unimportant. However it's important to understand that you don't have convert all your old paper files right of the bat. Instead, try a "scan forward" approach to conversion: choose a cut-off date, after which all new documents will be created electronically.

Only scan existing paper records if they're used - in many cases, documents that don't get scanned after a year can be archived or simply destroyed. This approach lets you get started much more quickly - and you can always decide later to start scanning older files.

For some businesses, access to all their paper files is essential. In those cases, you'll need back file scanning services. These niche vendors have expensive high-volume scanners and plenty of staffers to operate them. Typically, you'll ship your documents to them, but if your files contain highly sensitive material, it may be worth the extra cost to select a scanning service that will come to your office.

Once they're scanned, you can shred your old documents - and you're one step closer to a paperless office.