While it may seem impossible to have a 100% paperless office, there are steps a law firm, court reporting firm, or any small business can implement to be on the way to a paperless office. It may not be feasible to go paperless, and each firm needs to weigh the risks and benefits.
What You Need To Go Paperless:
- One or more scanners
- Develop a naming and organization scheme for scanned documents
- Large monitor (easier to review documents)
Next, let’s discuss the top five reasons to consider going paperless.
- Increased productivity
- Improved client service
- Reduction of operating costs
- Better security
- Environmentally friendly
Increased productivity – Scanning of documents significantly decreases the time spent searching for a paper file. Access to scanned documents is immediate (provided you have a good folder system and/or document management system). When you scan the document, be sure to use OCR software to ensure that the document is searchable, which makes time spent searching for a passage less time-consuming.
Improved client service – Never tell a client you will need to get back to them again when they call and ask a question that requires finding the necessary information from a paper document. Also, if your document is searchable, it is less likely you will overlook a key passage. Happy clients equal referrals to their friends and colleagues.
Reduction of operating costs – Storage costs represent a major expense. As the paper accumulation grows, so does the cost of storage. Scanned documents are an affordable and cost-effective way to transmit documents to other firms and clients.
Better security – Paper documents are subject to theft and destruction (fire, flood, etc).
Environmentally friendly – Going digital/paperless will result in fewer photocopies, reducing paper consumption, and expense at the same time.
Your Memphis court reporters of Omega Reporting are here to help our clients in their efforts to go paperless. We scan all exhibits and invoices for our clients. We then create a searchable PDF transcript with exhibit linking. Our electronic signatures are affixed to the transcripts as well. Of course, once these “paperless” transcripts are created, they are then uploaded to our secure online repository for access 24/7! Call or email to find out more.
901.827.8671
