Published on January 15th, 2020 | by Aleisha Jenkins

How Your Company Can Stay Organized with Document Control Software

As businesses increasingly move away from paper-based systems and into digital documentation environments, they find they are more efficient, productive, and organized. Document control software can automate and manage your documents and workflows so your business can stay better organized. How? In this article, we will explore the technical aspects of how document control software can keep your business organized so your operations can be more cost-effective.

The Organizational Benefits of Document Control Software

In paper-based systems, filing documents and maintaining updated files can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Manual organization means you risk humans making mistakes such as placing documents in the wrong files, misnaming folders, and losing or damaging documents. Large organizations or ones that have regulatory compliance requirements to keep up with have particular challenges when it comes to document organization. One lost record can lead to a chain of problems in an audit.

Document control software can help you:

Keep your documents up to date.
Keep track of documents.
Make sure the right people have access to the correct documents.
Prevent documents from getting into the wrong hands.
Centralize the management of documents into one, easy-to-use portal.
Automate the archiving and clean-up of your files.
Provide easy retrieval should you need quick access for audits.
Ensure security for organizational peace of mind.

These organizational elements are increasingly important as businesses move towards remote workforce structures. Even if a company isn’t reliant on paper anymore, it could be risking organizational problems by using basic shared folders or other rudimentary online systems. With employees accessing documents from multiple locations, it’s not efficient or smart to have disparate systems through which employees file, label, share, and store documents. This organizational mistake can cause security risks. Using automated workflows can prevent certain risks and also further improve organizational structure.

How Document Control Software Technically Advances Workflow

Organizing different types of documents: Different types of documents require different workflows, and those disparate workflows are challenging to manage without a streamlined, automated environment. Document control systems allow you to create dedicated workflows for various document types, so you know they are routing to the right locations and people.

Setting flexible options: You can also set flexible options for routing with approval and review processes. Throughout each workflow, you can set phases for document sign-off, and flexible routing enables your business to assign intelligent business rules to each document and stage. With the right document control software, your users will also be able to create their own workflow layouts so they can customize working with documents in ways that are easiest for them.

Better storage: Document control software means your workflow productivity benefits from easier, more accessible storage. When workers can access documents instantly to make edits, workflows advance quickly and efficiently. And there’s no such thing as an unapproved change in a software-controlled document management system because the document creates a record of including who accessed it and what edits that person made.

As an added bonus to better storage, you can also reduce storage space when using software. Gone are file cabinets, boxes, and storage bins, as well as the cost you would otherwise spend to maintain those spaces.

Fewer steps: With an automatic workflow, your business minimizes the number of phases documents have to go through because there are no unnecessary steps. Your workflow advances by also reducing the number of programs you have to use to process a document. All the systems needed to advance a document through a workflow are consolidated within document control software.

Some More Technical Benefits of Using Document Control Software

Essential security and compliance: Modern businesses simply cannot afford to compromise their data by employing older, outdated security systems. That rule goes for all documentation, too. Document control software can provide:

Multi-layered user, group, and folder security.
Installation behind a firewall.
Security measures that meet various compliance requirements.
Electronic signatures to abide by industry regulations.
Secure, automated, electronic distribution.

Through security policies that your business sets, you can allow individual users to view files or documents and enable access authorization to only the right parties. Document control software lets you keep confidential information safe in case your business is physically hit by a disaster such as flooding or fire.

Compliance needs for some industries require complex documentation. Without a way to quickly and accurately retrieve relevant documents, businesses could be held in non-conformance and risk fines, liability, or license revocation. Businesses abiding by PCI, Sarbanes Oxley, or HIPAA, for example, have to be able to easily retrieve documents needed for compliance. Document control software reduces the risk of non-compliance by automating processes and helping a business more clearly classify and store documents.

App integration: The right software will let you streamline information across various platforms, such as email. All your collaboration technologies can integrate with document control software so you can reduce redundant data input and speed up communication and file transfer. When you’re able to integrate third-party technology, you can get the best of all worlds.

Version control: Documents stored in a software-based environment imprint every interaction and phase they go through. This function enables a business to not only always have the latest version of a document, but to easily see the sequence of versions that came before the most recent one. Without version control, a business is either out of luck or spends valuable time searching for files it can find in an instant with document control software.

Reduced hardware and costs: From a technical standpoint, your business has two options when going with document control software: you can install it either on-premise or use it in the cloud. The technical benefits of going cloud-based include reducing the amount of hardware you have to maintain and buy in addition to eliminating any stress from having to monitor it. You won’t be responsible for upgrading any hardware, but you can leave the support of the solution and any issue you have to your document control software provider. Even if you want to go with an on-premise system, your capital expenditures will likely be less than they are for maintaining manual document processes.

Thinking Document Control Software Can Help Your Business Stay Organized?

Document control software is an essential technology for businesses that want to erase document management stress and ensure their operations are up to snuff for the future. No business today can risk damaged or lost confidential information, and neither can it afford to waste time on old, manual processes. Staying organized is one of the most prominent benefits of using document control software, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Join the flanks of competitive, relevant businesses today that are seeing great organizational success using document control software.

Tags: app development, company, control, document, security, software

About the Author

Aleisha Jenkins is the Marketing Director at DocXellent. She has worked in communications and marketing for 10 years, however, she is most passionate about the technology sector where she has spent the last 5 years researching and analyzing the industry and creating and executing integrated marketing campaigns to promote document management software.