Whether your trying to ‘go green’, develop a better filing system, or just to save money on office supplies, chances are you’ve thought about going paperless. Many companies are now desiring to go completely digital and most run into road blocks, including:
- Previous investments in expensive technologies such as printers and faxes
- Scores of important paper documents that first need to be transferred to digital
- Lack of support or acceptance from customers, clients or employees
- Little understanding of new technologies
Running a paperless business is important to me for all of the reasons I listed in the first sentence of this post. I’m lucky enough to have an advantage over many companies, because:
In college, I had an ‘Office Space’ type moment where I through my printer out a second story window into a dumpster. Note: I did this not in an angry rage, but because I was moving and the thing NEVER worked properly in the first place.
- I have no previous investment in large, expensive technologies. I do not own a fax machine, a scanner or a printer. In fact, I loath printers (and their expensive ink) and hope to never own another one.
- My business is brand new, so I do not have file cabinets full of paperwork that needs to be digitized.
- The entire goal of my business is to help other businesses understand and adjust to the digital age, so there should not be any objections from clients or employees. I will address this more in my next post though.
- I have a pretty good understanding of new technologies. It’s what I do:)
Just because I have a few advantages doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to make your business at least partially paperless with a few strategic changes. In my next series of ”How to run a paperless business” posts, I will tell you how I am able to run a completely paperless business and share the cheap and easy technologies I use to replace their expensive and complex ancestors.
What are the challenges you have faced trying to go ‘paperless’? Let me know in your comments and I will try to address them in my next post.
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For my invoicing and basic bookkeeping needs, I use Freshbooks. Freshbooks is a great way to keep track of your bookkeeping online and send out invoices on time to clients. Its simple to use and you can send clients an invoice via email which they can then pay online with credit cards or PayPal. If you have clients who are unwilling to accept an emailed invoice and still want a paper copy, you can have Freshbooks mail out a paper copy for you. It cost between $.99-$1.79 to mail each paper invoice but it saves you a trip to the post office and the cost of printing and stuffing an envelope!
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