Paper filing systems are used by many companies all throughout the United States (and, to be sure, in many places beyond it as well). But paper filing systems are far from ideal, and often lead to far more trouble than they are actually worth. Paper filing systems can cause any number of issues, and converting documents and switching over to forms of digital storage, typically on the cloud, is becoming more and more popular. There are many reasons for doing so, many benefits of the digital filing system over the paper one. For one, a digital system of document storage will allow you to access your files remotely, something that more than seventy five percent of all countries here in the United States have shown an interest in, if they haven’t switched over already. And converting documents and switching to a digital system is even likely to save you money in the long run, though the process of converting documents and scanning on site, it’s true, can often be long and arduous.

There are a few reasons as to why this is the case. For one, it saves time that could be spent productively, doing work. When the process of converting documents have been completed, the digital files that now exist are easy to access and even easier to find. All you have to know, really, is the name of the document (or at least a keyword pertaining to it). With a paper filing system, up to five minutes can be lost just simply walking to the filing cabinet, finding the document that you’re in search of, and walking back. While five minutes might not seem like a particularly significant amount of time, documents are often essential in many facets of office work and lots of these little five minute increments certainly add up. Faxing, while once a particularly innovative way of sending documents back and forth, is also very time consuming, taking very nearly ten minutes to send just one fax in one direction. Switching to electronic message and document sharing platforms, on the other hand, is far more efficient. A document will be signed and already sent back in eighty percent less the time than it would be if it were faxed over instead.

On top of all of this, paper filing systems are simply very costly. The cost of having one fax machine alone, for instance, exceeds six thousand dollars for just one year. And actual documents are also very expensive, as each documents takes about twenty dollars to be filed. And this is only when something doesn’t go wrong. Part of the costliness of a paper filing system is directly linked to the inefficiency of it. Documents are often misplaced or even lost permanently, and a misplaced or lost document can cost as much as one hundred and twenty dollars to find or even replace. These small amounts – and not so small amounts, if you will – add up considerably over time, and end up costing companies throughout the United States quite a bit of money when all is said and done. As nearly ten percent of all documents get lost permanently (and three percent are temporarily misfiled), the problem of paper filing systems is apparent to many business people all throughout the United States.

Switching over to a digital filing system is becoming more and more ideal for these reasons, with companies looking to save money and improve their overall efficiency all at once. First, however, you must go through the process of converting documents. Converting documents can be a laborious project, but outsourcing the work to document conversion services can help. These document digitization services can do all of the hard work for you, and allow your employees to remain as productive as ever, if not even more productive. Outsourcing the work takes away the burden of converting microfiche from the company itself, something that is very ideal, as the process of converting documents can take quite a long time when it is not handled by a professional, as many companies have years of paper filing systems to wade through. Converting documents, however, will be well worth it in the long run.