Every month, we send out about 12,000 notices to our clients. We used to mail paper for these billing reminders and other messages—the equivalent of a five-foot-tall stack, month in and month out.
Early this past summer, we sent our last paper notice. In fact, our entire operation is almost completely paperless. From hiring to training to everyday internal communication, everything happens online.
Benefits of Going Paperless
- Save money. Electronic document storage is cheaper than all that paper, toner, and postage. For small businesses, it might even be free.
- Improve Efficiency. It’s just easier to instantly search your cloud storage for the information you need than to rummage through paper files.
- Cut Carbon. Paper is wasteful for most applications. Electronic messages use much less energy, even if they’re sent around the globe.
- Anywhere Works. When you go paperless, there’s less clutter forcing you to work in one location. You can access your cloud documents, and be productive, from just about anywhere.
Tips for Going Paperless at Work
- Cloud Storage. We use Google Drive and Dropbox, but there are many products that allow you to store your documents online. Do your research to find one that fits your needs.
- Digital Hiring: We use an iPad to take a photo of candidate’s resumes. Our 27-page application is now digital, and DocuSign allows us to collect signatures without paper.
- Paperless Training: With AdaptiveYou, the online learning system we developed, our new hires watch video clips to learn much of what they need to know to do their jobs. Even simple YouTube videos posted to a private account can do the trick.
- Electronic Billing: If you don’t already, offer your customers the opportunity to pay online. We developed our own Online Access system to allow our clients to manage their accounts.
Going paperless may seem daunting at first, but we’ve never looked back. Do you have a favorite tool or technique for running a business without paper? We’d love to hear about it.
