Reduce reliance on paper
Making a switch to using electronic documents results in reduced storage costs of physical media. It also has a lower environmental impact. Once documents have been scanned and had their data extracted, there is no need to hang on to the paper copy. It can simply be shredded & recycled. Unlike with EDI – where transmissions consist mainly of raw data meant to be transmitted solely between computers and translated by systems on either end – documents sent via EDD are human-readable files we use every day, like PDFs and Word documents, and so decreasing the need to make paper copies in the first place.
Cut postage costs
For businesses processing a large volume of documents, Electronic Document Delivery, or EDD, makes more sense to the bottom line. In many cases, the savings on monthly postage costs pay for the solution within a matter of months. EDD is often used by Accounts Departments to send invoices and statements but it can be used for many other things. For example, companies that create thought leadership may use EDD to distribute whitepapers; events companies may use it to send event attendee tickets, or health/medical companies can use it to transfer patient files.
Save staff time
With modern EDMs, you can automate many of the tasks that are currently done by staff, such as creating and dispatching invoices. EDMs can also scan inbound files and use Optical character recognition technology to parse out the information in them. Rules can be set up dependent on triggers particular to your business. For example, a statement can automatically be sent to a business partner at the end of each month, freeing up your staff to do more unique tasks.
Customize workflows
EDM solutions often have user-friendly dashboards with easy drag-and-drop elements for customizing workflows based on what’s important to your specific business. This means flows can be set up and changes can be made with very little effort. These workflows can even define what should be done with certain documents before they ever reach the ERP.
Search your index
Document Management solutions have the capability to index all documents based on tags and metadata. This index of documents then becomes searchable under the auspice of a field they contain. Particularly for highly regulated industries, this allows for quick collation of relevant information and full audit trails. This means less admin time involved in preparing for the audit process.
Communicate with your ERP
With custom workflows and integration with your ERP solution, getting a 360° view of your business is easy. Documents can be automatically added to already-created entities. For example, sales invoices can be automatically attached to a supplier’s record without any human interaction. This further enhances accountability and auditing capabilities.
