Want to reduce your firm's footprint?

Consideration for our beautiful Australian environment has become increasingly essential over the last few decades. Did you know that every year Australians use 1.7 million tonnes of printing/writing paper - the equivalent of tens of millions of trees? As legislation and compliance requirements grow over time, so does the documentation produced by accounting practices and professional firms.

Legal requirements demand your clients' documents are kept for 7 years before discarding and this adds an additional element of paper usage. A major concern with paper archiving is the risk of loss due to fire or flooding. All you need to do is look at your archive storeroom or filing cabinets to see the growing and risky dilemma!

The environmentally-conscious alternative

Digital filing systems are becoming more and more sophisticated, automated and affordable. They also allow you to make off-site backups with the click of a button. Above all, they take up a fraction of your valuable floor space compared with a large, clumsy filing cabinet.

Digital vs. Paper filing systems

Greater security and confidentiality. The filing cabinets in most companies are unlocked and anyone can access these sensitive files. Most of the time, team members put them back in the right place, but sometimes they're lost or misfiled.

Massive reduction in the time & cost of searching. With document management software you can access any electronic file or documents within seconds. According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers:

• 50% of a professional's time is spent looking for information
• 5-15% is used in reading the information
• 7.5% of all documents get lost forever and must be constantly recreated

Easier, cheaper and faster to share files. Paper-based information is very difficult to share with multiple people without copying the document many times. With document management software, multiple people can securely view a document at the same time, add comments and collaborate without the document ever leaving the system or being duplicated.

Free up valuable floor space to make money. Many firms are using large areas of their valuable floor space to store paper - space that could be used to generate income for the business.

Save on legal costs. Most industries are now legislated to protect information and make it available on call to authorities. A breach of these laws could cost a business many thousands of dollars.

Get the right technology

Our Document Manager module can assist you with taking your paper storage and archiving into a digital format and delivering all the cost-saving benefits mentioned earlier.

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10 Easy ways to using less paper

Becoming 'Paper-Less' is not about removing all the paper in your business. That may not practical right now, especially during your busiest time. As a starting point, it's about guiding people in your office to do things a little differently, in ways that reduce paper usage.

Many 'Paper-Less' actions cost nothing to implement but will reduce your impact on landfill, plus save trees, water, energy and your hard-earned money. As an example, double-sided printing can immediately cut your paper use in half. Here are another 10 easy ways to make a difference:

1. Share documents electronically through email and shared drives
2. Don't print emails
3. Think before you print or copy any documentation
4. Use a duplex capable copier and printer; change default print settings to double-sided
5. Reduce your business junk mail by maintaining your mail subscriptions
6. Send reminders to clients via SMS or email
7. Test before copying big jobs and use Print Preview function before printing
8. Don't print websites unnecessarily, but if you need to, print the "printer-friendly" page version
9. Print more words on each page by reducing margins and font sizes
10. Save and re-use paper around the office.