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4 Ways Paperwork Burns a Hole in Your Pocket
Today, even after two decades of digitization, paper is an active part of business processes. From memos to contracts; sales invoices to payslips, paper documents can be found everywhere. But using paper comes with its own challenges – like any other offline solution. Forget “print – sign – scan”, the amount incurred on sending out paper documents for approvals, or storing them in a physical archive is quite steep.
Below, we outline 4 challenges you face with paperwork – based business processes:
Reason 1 – Print, Sign & Scan
Documents by their very nature, require a creator, a signing authority, logistics, & storage. Let’s find out the real issue, one step at a time.
1. Creator drafts the first version – A hard copy is printed and sent for approval. Not tamper-proof, as multiple copies required at times
Key Cost: Printing & Paper
2. Signer(s) review the draft – As required, there might be multiple signing authorities. The document must go through each of them, and at times, back n forth.
Key Cost: Photocopies / Logistics / Productivity
3. Scanning drafts for storage & archival: Once approved, the hard copy is scanned to store a digital copy, while the hard copy is stored in archives.
Key Cost: Scanning & Storage
Time to Get Out of PSS (Print, Sign, Scan) RoutineReason 2 – In-person Signatures
Be it banking, real estate, or commercial deals, in-person signatures are still the norm. They are considered trustworthy & legally admissible. And it might appear that for one-off signs, in-person signatures are the way to go. But scale this to 10 signs per document, and millions of documents to be signed (an ideal customer onboarding use case).
Like it or not, be it KYC verification or purchasing a new car, a majority of signatures today, happen on paper. And each signature comes with the cost of bringing the paperwork to the signing party, getting their signature, and storing it for accessibility.
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Reason 3 – Courier Charges
In the age of Google & social, paperwork is still being filed and sent via couriers for approval. Assuming that your organizations onboards just 100 new customers every day, physical KYC verification for them, at $3 per courier, will cost $300 alone, per day! And you have just got the sign – scanning, storage, and archival are costs to be incurred in the long run.
Reason 4 – Storage & Accessibility
Unlike digital documents, paperwork can consume a lot of physical space and continue to grow with time. The centralized storage unit won’t be big enough to hold all the documents and storage will have to be fragmented across different buildings, rooms, or sites. This transition reduces accessibility, and in turn, productivity.
Paperwork is usually prone to damage or loss, coupled with increasing storage costs. According to a report, about $1800 per year is spent on maintaining a single four-drawer filing cabinet, while it costs $200 to replace a lost document. Scale this across your organization and you’ll be in for a surprise.
Conclusion
While the challenges related to physical paperwork are many; the solution is just one. With a simple document management solution like MSB Docs or Docusign, documents can be created, signed, stored, or archived, from a single dashboard. And now No more in-person signatures – with video in-person verification & aadhar/social security validation, these document management solutions eliminate the need of visiting / sending documents over a courier to potential customers.
The documents are safe, easily accessible, and with cloud storage, your documents stay safer than ever.