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Do You Really Need Document Management Software?

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Policies and procedures need to be managed, not simply collected, as we oftentimes tend to do.  Add in the offspring of policies and procedures — records — and you have the making of a problem common to business…a lack of control.

Control of records and documents is critical to compliance.  ISO 9001 requires document control, record control, and specific procedures that clarify how you are maintaining control.  HIPAA requires access control.  Sarbanes-Oxley requires access and revision control.  Document and record control are at the heart of many of the various compliance schemes businesses encounter.

file-cabinet

If yours is a small business, you’re probably using one of two basic solutions: manual or server based file sharing to control your policies and procedures.  The manual system consists of a series of file cabinets that contain your business policies, procedures, documents, and vital records.

Everyone is familiar with these legacy systems.  In fact, most businesses still use these today, even though they may not be very secure, are hard to back up, and take up a lot of storage space (especially the older files that are kept offsite).  As a business grows, it may find that retrieving vital procedure documents and records can be a nightmare.  Yet, we stick with paper documents and filing systems because the up-front cost is considered inexpensive, paper is easy to use, and we’ve always used it.  Unfortunately, manual systems don’t scale very effectively — just ask your doctor.  But, what’s the alternative?

Modern businesses use some form of file server to store and share their policies, procedures, documents and records.  A file server is often a shared hard drive on your local area network (LAN).  Shared drives have several advantages over manual filing systems.  They are searchable, don’t take up as much space, and can be made somewhat secure by restricting access using various file permission schemes.  But, shared drives require training (to various degrees), it can be difficult to index non-text files (images), and they require back-up systems to prevent accidental changes or deletions.  And, as soon as you add an electronic back-up system, you’ve just increased the complexity of the solution dramatically.

Enter document management software.  Using document management software provides more than just file serving.  Your document management system (DMS) should provide the document and record control that most compliance standards require and do it in a more user-friendly environment.  In other words, you should get more benefits for less work.

What do you get with document management software?

  • Back-up / disaster recovery
  • Security / access control
  • Search / document retrieval
  • Compliance / record control
  • Revision / document control
  • Approval / document workflow
  • Consistency / ease-of-use and training
  • Flexibility / scalability
  • Filing / record scanning

Your document management system should resolve many of your document management and record control issues which, in turn, should provide the support for more effective policies and procedures deployment.  If you’re not using document management software today, you should consider what you’re missing — and what you won’t miss once you’ve converted.  Look around your office — if you have a lot of file cabinets in use, maybe it’s time to upgrade your document management system to the 21st century.  Maybe it’s time to start realizing the benefits of a modern document management software solution.


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