Amolodocs Podcast: Recent Episodes
Jacqueline
Amolodocs brings you talks on transformation of workspaces in the small and medium businesses. Join host Jacqueline Odhiambo, Founder Cadtech Services Ltd takes you on this transitioning journey towards a paperless workspace.This podcast series supports the small and medium businesses transition into the digital space by eliminating the use of paper in their work process and going completely paperless in slow but manageable steps. We give tips to guide the business owners, interview government officials on compliance and interview experts in the field of document management to enlighten them on the best practice. It is possible, it is doable to join us and we transition together in an informed manner.
In this episode of the Amolodocs Podcast, Jacqueline talks about what John as a boy child goes through in school. How as adults, parents and teachers have a lot of assumptions without doing due diligence. And how this affects the boy child’s emotions to the detriment of his future. Neither of them wants to listen to the boy child to understand what he is going through.
John’s story brings forth
- How teachers have assumptions on taking of drugs in school.
- How parents insists on the boy child following their chosen career path.
- How can a boy child show his talent, without being labeled negatively
- How a school that the boy child goes to can define his success or failure in future
- How can we support the boy child ?
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In our second episode on Journey towards a paperless society, we will have continuous conversations
With our guest Mr. Collins Mutimba, a document and records expert and trainer, the conversations will touch on the legislative framework in records management and the impact it will have in your digitization journey
This will be with a focus on
The existing laws on digitization
Records management policy
Data protection
Access to information
Classification systems
Retention and disposal policy
The tracking system (audit trail)
Legality of electronic signatures (e signatures)
Assigning responsibility in records management
Compliance and risk management
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On our webinar series of the journey towards a paperless society
Guest speaker Collins Mutimba, a Documents and Records expert and trainer gives answers to the host Jacqueline Odhiambo, CEO Cadtech Services Ltd Kenya on the need for digitization.
He explains to us why documents are necessary in the office space
Why this is the right time to digitize your documents and go digital.
And why even if you don't have a budget you can start small with a pilot project and then expand
digitization #gopaperless
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Intro
Ezra has been working in the Finance department of their company as an accountant for several years. All their work process involves paper and all data was entered in their accounts system manually making their process tedious and subject to human error. Considering that it is a medium sized company with a lot of customers and suppliers there was continuous processing of daily transactions with their stakeholders.
Ezra the Accountant and Christian the Information technology both with quite a number of years of experience in their fields, had been having discussions about improving their working process for quite some time. They were thinking of how they can improve efficiency and speed in the departmental work process thus the company as a whole. This prompted Ezra to approach their Finance manager, Juma to share his insight.
Luckily this was a discussion that had been going on in top management after being approached by several electronic document management system (EDMS) vendors and Juma had already been briefed.
Juma set up a meeting and explained the situation and that the implementation was to start with his department. This was like God sent to Ezra, who took up the project without hesitation. He set up a timeline to achieve his goal. His goal was to streamline the work process to completely eliminate the use of paper and to have an efficient and faster turnaround time.
Planning and outsourcing an electronic document management vendor
They were inputting data manually into their accounting systems.
They would spend hours trying to find the documents, which was tiresome and time wasting.
They asked themselves several questions
How does the process start?
How is the information captured?
How is the information routed?
How is information stored? How secure was the storage and how accessible was the information?
Would the systems be integrated to have a seamless work flow? Would the system index and store the documents in a digital repository to ease retrieval.
The solution
Installation
Outro
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Intro
Financial audit assists in providing clarity to the business by identifying how well internal controls and financial reporting are working and which process improvements should be given priority. Audit can be time consuming, tedious and nerve wracking. Searching for documents and sorting them out as per the requirements of the auditor takes a lot of time. This is usually determined by the no. of daily transactions being handled within a company.
How do we handle our audit process? Is it easy and flawless or is it tedious and nerve wracking? Searching for and sorting documents as per the auditors requirements can take time if the documents are in paper format.It will also take the auditor quite some time to go through your accounting documents even if they are well organized. The paper documents slow down the audit process and can be very frustrating.
When a company is managing its documents using a paper based process. At the end of the year, they provide the auditor with the required paper documents. The auditor wants his documents arranged in a specific way to ease his work. To give the auditor what he wants. A number of staff have to stop the productive work they were doing and assist in searching and identifying the right documents.
The process forces them to go searching for the required documents in the filing cabinets and maybe also in the stores. This can be tedious and can take days for the documents to be found. This stops them from doing their productive work for a period of time to assist the auditor. This is time consuming and unproductive.
It would be a game changer if the company had decided to put in an electronic document management system in place. This would speed up the audit process of this company and save them time and minimize frustrations. The auditor would have his secured space with user rights of digitally captured financial documents. At the end of every year the auditor can easily access these documents by the click of a button. The automated workflow ensures that the books are organized, factual and easy to understand. This makes all business documents searchable in a few clicks making it easy for the auditors to search for by criteria such as supplier name, product type, amount, or date or full text search. This can happen when there is full integration of the financial software with the document management system. It would allow the auditors to access supporting information without leaving the accounting system or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). making the whole auditing process not only easier for the auditor but also for the company's other staff. With electronic document management the information can be easily findable whether its source was emails, contracts, or financial statements. Data is accessible whenever they require them without delay. The other staff will not also stop their work to assist in document search. Not only is time saved but also productivity will improve. Audit process will also be faster and data more accurate. That would be a great place to work
Outro
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Intro
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives, it is the one that is the most adaptable to change” Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
You would walk into an office and all you would hear is the tap! Tap! Tap!of the typewriter and the drrrring drrrring drrrring of the dial up phone. People were so used to the sounds that they would find it abnormal if they walked into a silent office which is the norm nowadays. The analog era where everything was done manually. Type a letter with a typewriter and erase an error using white out. There was no delete key then. Dial up the telephone trrrrtra, trrrrtra one digit after another. However long it took we had to communicate, we had no option. I think the attention span was also longer. There was no hurry in Africa.
We then transitioned to the tapping phone. The dial ups were abandoned in the archives and museums. We were introduced to the computers which now had the delete key. No need for white outs and long hours of hitting on the hard stand keyboard tap! Tap! Tap! And now communication was faster than the previous era. Letters would now be received immediately through a fax machine. What an amazing transition we were wowed. People born in this era were wondering how those museum-like dial up phones were being used and who had all that time to make a call. And use those museum-like typewriters to type letters. The era before this there was even training for typing speed. I wonder if it still exists. We were falling into our comfort zone ‘tuko mbele’
Then voila!!! The internet came, the era of emails and with it the mobile phones now we had the communication in our hands. We were not leaving them on our desks anymore. Communication improved tenfold. We didn’t have to wait till we got into the office to make or to receive a call . Communication was at the tip of our fingers. Letters would be sent as email immediately after typing and get the reply immediately. Amazing the workspace productivity improved and so we thought. Really we had reached the ultimate.
Hardly had we even relaxed, the world went crazy, social media facebook, whatsapp, tiktok. You could communicate with many people at one go. You ask for help and you get it immediately. The world is now abuzz. The world of the smartphone, Digital transformation. You just tap a name you call immediately, you send a message and feedback is immediate. Everything is moving so fast. The office space is changing. People would be operating in different parts of the world but still working in the same office. The office workspace is now global. The communication is now not only faster but can also be translated into different world languages. We don’t need to send letters that will take weeks to reach the other parts of the world. The world has become smaller. The smartphone is now the multifaceted communication tool replacing the good old dial up phone and the good old typewriter. What a transformation. This is just but a small part of the digital transformation
Is your office space in the era of dial up phone and the good old typewriter or in the era of the desktop tap phone and the desktop computer or you are dynamic and moving with the world’s digital transformation era
Support your workspace digital transformation
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Intro
What is digital business transformation with relation to your document management?
Digital transformation is the integration of digital technology into your business processes.
This is done to improve the overall performance of the business and to reduce operation cost. Culture change is also necessary for a complete and successful business digital transformation.
The initial investment in digital transformation is high and thus care and diligence should be taken to ensure that the implementation is done well. If done well this cost will return tenfold in the long run. What the company needs is an agile team that is alway ahead with the technological changes.
Why digital transformation?
When a business goes into a complete digital transformation the return on investment is huge.
How do you gauge the level you are in?
This is in your digital transformation with relation to your document management.
There are four levels of determining where you are.
Level 1: Analogue
This is the initial stage where all your documents are in paper form. The paper documents are stored in files and boxes, either in filing cabinets or in a store within the office space.
Level 2: Digital Focus (Digitized)
In this level you are digitally focused but with no strategy in place.
Your workflows are still paper based. You might be having some kind of a cloud storage but no systemized way of storing. The documents cannot be found using the search tools. There is no systemized way of storing the digital documents, The documents are just dumped into the cloud storage to give us that feeling that the documents are safe.
Level 3: Digital focus (Automated)
At this stage digital strategy is already in place. The company is now aware of its journey to digital transformation.
At this level the workflow is automated and there is minimal use of paper.
Level 4: Digitally transformed (Optimized)
In this stage the company is completely digitally transformed. No paper is in use at all. There is complete collaboration across all the departments of a company.
There is full integration of the electronic document management system with all the other systems in the company such as the CRM, Human resource systems, accounting systems and others.
In this stage collaboration is on a high level. Robotic process automation is also appropriate for repeatable tasks and thus it is applicable here.
Searchability of documents with the help of artificial intelligence is also incorporated making the workflow flawless. With the system integration multichannel processing is raised to another level.
Conclusion
When you reach level 4, that is when the digital transformation is completely optimized, The transformation is profound. The return on investment is being felt completely but it takes a while, patience and focus.
Where are you at the moment?
Where would you like to be?
Outro
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Intro
Going paperless seems like an herculean task given that quite a number of tools are required for the implementation to take place, examples include scanners, a document management system, Computers and Labour (if outsourced) or time (if internal employees) to handle the process. Digital transformation does not have to be expensive after all. There are tools that are cost effective enough and can be customised and used in the managing and storage of digital documents.
There are a number of reasons which might be ignored that going paperless will be able to eliminate in the long run. These are factors that frequently occur but we tend to brush aside and continue with business as usual.
One of the reasons is the safety of your important documents. As your documents keep on compiling and this includes also the important documents all you have to do is buy more files and filing cabinets for storing them. These documents are accessed by different personnel. You may even decide to lock the important files in a different secured room. Do you have time to monitor who went into that room? Was the person the authorised personnel or another personnel who is not authorised? How high is the possibility of the confidential and important documents being stolen? The documents may not even be safe from natural disasters such as flooding or even fire. Would it not be better if these documents were kept in the digital format whereby anybody accessing them can be monitored.
The second reason is how productive are the employees?If they spend most of their productive hours searching for documents when required. The documents may have piled up as the years go by and yet the documents are still in use. During an audit, it takes a while to search for the required documents. This can be made easy if the documents are in digital format whereby the auditors can easily access the documents. It leaves the other personnel to continue with their productive work. And the auditor can do his work with ease.
What if a document is misplaced, how much time are employees spending on searching for the misplaced documents? That is non productive time.
The third reason is the impact of having paper documents on the operation cost?With files and file cabinets of paper documents obviously you need space for these documents which means either you lease more office space or look for a place to store them. There are certain instances where you may even get a room in your house to store them. How much more would it cost you? How expensive is your office space? This means more expenditure for non productive purposes. There is no return on investment on the acquired space for storing paper documents.
As you are creating more paper documents. There is additional purchase of paper, Box Files, folders and cabinets? The dent this causes on your overhead cost is quite high, especially now when companies are working on minimising their operation cost due the economic downturn.If you were to go paperless the cost of leasing office space would be reduced or the space used for a more productive activity. The money being used on the paper consumables, cost of ink cartridges used to produce prints and copies,cost of pens, printer maintenance and other office costs related to paper staples, paper
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Intro
Audit trails in financial industry
In the financial industry prioritizing of compliance, customer data and information security and a complete audit trail is necessary subject to regulatory audit and external reviews.
Audit trail in Healthcare
In healthcare protecting patient health information and when and how it can be disclosed is very important. This outlaws disclosure without the patient's knowledge.
Audit trail in manufacturing industryIn the manufacturing industry, an audit trail is crucial in quality control. Customers want to know that their suppliers are paying adequate attention to the goods being manufactured, thus keeping an eye on the production process is a very important and crucial part of manufacturing.
Audit trail in construction industryWhen handling projects whether big or small coordination with loads of documents and data shared, revised and updated. This involves a number of stakeholders from the architect to the engineers, the owner, the contractor, the subcontractors, the suppliers and the approval bodies.
What are the Benefits of audit trail
Prevention of fraud
With audit trail companies have better control of the movement of information. Record keeping of audit trail flags any information inconsistencies within the company. It eliminates both internal fraud and external frauds
Flawless audits
Annual external audits are usually done for publicly held companies by third parties, Audit trail eases the process due to a compliant and properly kept records.
Increased efficiency
With audit trail retrieving information and making it accessible is made easier saving the business time and improving efficiency.
Disaster recovery
In case of a disaster or a crisis the audit trail will cover up, it would be a reliable record of the prior business activities, costs, expenses and income. It acts for you like an insurance that can help you recover from a rather helpless situation.
Loan positioning and investment
An audit trail makes it easy to track your financials and determines their accuracy making it easy to establish if you are eligible for a loan or if you are investor friendly.
Meeting compliance requirements
To stay ahead with compliance, an audit trail ensures this happens. This can help you avoid potential loss of business, lost contracts and increased costs because of fines.
Maintaining audit trail
Putting up policies with regard to audit trail will be crucial to ensure that there is strict adherence to the process.
Challenges in managing an audit trail
These can come in terms of storage size, location, accessibility and storagetimelines.
Can audit trail work in paper based processes?
Many businesses may keep a paper trail of all information and data. What if the paper document is misplaced or incorrectly kept. A detail missed can compromise the production or project or financial process depending on which process it is being applied. There maybe a failure to communicate, change orders or lose track of crucial documents.
Outro
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Intro
Audit trail is a verifiable tracking of document movements across different transactional levels of a company. Thus it makes it easy for a document's history to be traced from the initial stage of creation to any altercation done on the document either in terms of editing, approving and transacting. Audit trail is date and time oriented and gives a different level of accountability to persons handling that specific document, reducing loopholes such as a document lying in one position without any specific action taking place. This would also enable an increase in productivity because of the level of improvement on the accountability part.One is able to track where the document has reached electronically without the tedious manual following up of the whereabouts of an important document. Audit trail works best in certain areas such as financial transactions, work events, product development and other areas where multiple numbers of people are involved.
In the healthcare industry audit trail is able to track access to patients medical information and any updates made therein.
In the financial industry audit trail would reveal and uncover any information in relation to customer’s transactions and compliance and any changes that are done therein and if there are any questions with regards to the accuracy and validity of the information.
How does an audit trail work?When it comes to a full audit trail with regard to a financial transaction, it will show the full execution of a specific execution for example it will reveal a time stamp revealing the seller, the purchaser, time of sale, location of sale and records key details of the transaction and processes which can be reviewed later. Audit trail can be for a simple process and also for a complex process. Audit trail can be as simple as a retail purchase where a receipt is given when an item is purchased or as complicated as a mortgage payment where audit trail is used to verify the source of funding for a downpayment for a home by a home buyer. Financial regulators can use audit trail to examine brokerage firms when there is suspicious market activity.
Why is the audit trail important in document management?
To track back any irregularities and process breakdowns if and when they happen It is important for businesses to maintain a complete and comprehensive audit trail. An airtight audit trail can help businesses identify internal fraud by keeping track of the different users and the actions they take with regard to the company’s data and information. Audit trait can also help track external data breaches issues. Malware and ransomware are on the rise and having an audit trail enables monitoring, identifying and flagging down outsiders who are up to no good. This improves the businesses information security capabilities. Audit trail also function as a compliance tool in that it enables control and function of user access and versioning, maintains privacy settings that can be tracked and adjusted to the standard requirements
Who uses an audit trail?Audit trails are used by staff, managers, accountants, legal teams and others but managed by the IT department who takes care of the electronic records but they are also part of the audit trail as the initiators of the process
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Intro
How you store your digital documents usually depends on how much data you have to store, your purpose and also on your budget.
You can opt to use a flash drive, an external hard drive, in your computer or even store in the cloud. The cloud storage is free up to a certain limit before you subscribe. There are several cloud storage providers in the market and each has a different free storage size offer.
The easiest option to store your digital documents is in your computer. This is because you won't have to spend more to get storage space and the files are always available within reach. Search can just be done by using file explorer to search for the required files.
How safe is this storage in the computer? What if your computer crashes or is stolen and you are not able to recover your documents?
Another option of storage is the external hard drive of which you can use as a backup for your files. If you have a lot of backed up files you might be having several hard drives.
How easy is it for you to identify where you have stored a specific document especially when you need it urgently. It might be helpful if you have been labeling the external hard drives or you have categorized the external hard drives.
How long is the shelf life of the external hard drive, especially if you have stored digital documents that you don’t want to dispose of any time sooner.
This needs a continuous checking of your external hard drives to ensure they will sustain your storage.
Another storage option that you can use is cloud storage. The advantage of cloud storage is the accessibility of your documents from anywhere as long as you have an electronic communicating device.
There are different providers of cloud storage whereby they usually have an initial free storage which differs from one provider to another.
The free storage ranges from 5GB to 2TB.If your documents are more than the free storage space means you have to subscribe for the extra space which you pay as a monthly or annual subscription.
This can end up being expensive in the long run. If you are on a tight budget it might not be sustainable.
The different providers include Microsoft with one drive, Amazon with AWS, Dropbox, google drive etc.
Another advantage of cloud storage is that it easily integrates with your computer and there are always continuous updates keeping you up to date with technology and your files will always be safe even if you lose your computer or any other device that you use.
With the online accessibility the risk of cyber attack any of your information leaking may be quite high.
On premise server is another type of digital storage. The advantage of the external server is that you determine the storage size and you pay for it only once. You can also scale it as your needs increase.
The disadvantage with this device is that the initial cost is high which means you have to plan for it. The other disadvantage is that it is stationed in one place. This means you can only work with it in a specific place and if there is a case of burglary or fire there is a likelihood of you losing all your information.
Digital storage using the Electronic document management systems (EDMS)
This is a centralized place or repository
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Intro
Digital transformation is an adaptive change. This is because it takes place in small,gradual and interactive steps overtime. Guidance is required for this process to take place in a smooth and flowing way. This initiates from conception, preparation through implementation and finally resolution.A proper management strategy is a requirement to ensure that as a business there is complete transition and adaptation to the changes.
- Know your why This will define the starting of this process and how it will be done. Thus a plan should be executed to guide the company in the right direction. This plan should include Goals - What do you want to achieve after the implementation. Will the change make the company grow ? and in what way? Key performance indicators -How will you measure your success? How will they be broken down in steps for you to know you are moving in the right direction. Where are you now or where are you starting?
- The company as a whole has to be prepared for the transition and the way to get a buy-in from the whole company is to communicate in a highly effective manner. The employees should be made aware of the transition and why it is necessary and also to assure them of their job security. This will bring in the employee in the implementation and transition process and easen the process. Who is included in overseeing the project? Who will sign off at every stage? Who will be accountable.?
- What is the scope of the project? Who are the stakeholders involved and will be interfered with when the transition takes place and this involves both internal and external stakeholders.
- What is the risk involved and how will it interfere with the digital transformation?
- Implementation of the digital transition is then done using the plan as a directional tool.Employees should be empowered continuously to speed up the steps in the implementation and to make them get into a place they took part in the implementation.They should also expect hurdles which they should readily be able to eliminate. There should be continuous communication on the ‘why’ to ensure that everyone is on the same page.
- Plans should be in place to ensure that the implementation sticks because the possibility of backsliding is high.This should be included in the company’s culture and practices. Controls should be put in place to ensure this takes place and the reverse doesn’t take place.
- Conducting an analysis after the implementation is a plus because you are able to confirm if the project was a success. questions to ask yourself are like were the goals met? Can the same process be replicated somewhere else?No two digital transformations are the same though they follow the same process.
Outro
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Intro
I remember the first day when I opened the office as in most cases I believe back then there would be only one person occupying that office, Many of us start offices without even having a physical office, we call it starting from zero. We find ourselves with the first document for company registration.
Then we start accumulating paper documents, contracts, offer letters, invoices, permits, receipts, tender documents et al. Then we start buying files and categorizing the documents to their specific files. Then maybe we move into a physical office if we didn’t have one initially. Then we start accumulating documents including duplicated ones and then we purchase a filing cabinet for storing these documents, then 2 cabinets, then 3 documents and now we have to create space for the cabinets storing essential and unnecessary documents. Increase in staff, means increase in documents.
As time goes by one year turns to two years, to three years and so on. Documents keep on piling as the digital born documents are converted into paper based documents. Then we realize we have to dispose of some documents and we can not just throw them into the dustbins because they are confidential and we don’t want our private information to be public information. We buy an office shredder to sort out the public private issue.
You remember that office shredder that nobody wants to use? To sort out the documents then shred them one by one is a task nobody likes. Document shredding can be a dull and non fulfilling work. We used to have an office shredder that was rarely used and yet we had a pile up of documents to be shredded. Everybody avoided that shredder-like plaque. The shredder would shred a few documents and overheat which meant we had to wait for it to cool again before continuing. We were placing ten documents at a time to avoid clogging the shredder and ensure that all the staples, clips and office pins were removed. And for the large format documents we had to cut them into small manageable sizes before shredding. This meant the preparation time was taking even more time than the shredding. It was not an interesting job. And afterwards you would have shredded waste that you didn’t know where to take.
With the commercial shredders the Pre preparation is not necessary and it can take huge quantities of paper reducing time spent on shredding. Outsourcing shredding works saves the businesses time which can be used in other productive work. You also have the option of choosing whether you want it off site or on site, Having your office shredding done on a monthly basis or just one time on request.The shredded waste is then recycled to be reused again.
Why would shredding be a better option than burning when disposing of your confidential documents?
- Burning might not completely destroy your information
- Burning is not good for the environment.
- Shredding can be done within the premises, burning you have to get an open space out of the office to burn the papers.
- Burnt paper cannot be recycled for reuse
- Burning takes more time especially for scheduled document disposal
Tips for paper shredding
- Have a shredding schedule.
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Intro
Digitization is the conversion of physical information into digital format and can be accessed from an electronic device such as computer or smartphone.
Have you ever thought that your Paper documents will deteriorate and get damaged with time and the information stored on them may get lost especially if the intention of keeping the documents is to use them in future. Digitization is much more complex than document scanning because it includes more components which includes capturing specifically content, classification and indexing of the paper documents as per your documenting process.
Documents that are digitized include
Standard filesThese are paper documents which are usually in A4 size
Plans and Maps
These are large format paper documents which can be as big as A0 size or even larger.
Photographs and microfilms
Photographs are in paper format while the microfilms are different though they still also get damaged and deteriorate with time.
Factors to look at when preparing for digitization.
Condition of the paper document
This will determine how the document will be scanned and which scanner will be used.
Demand for the document
If there is a high demand for a specific document, it is best to have the document digitized to minimize damage to the original document
Intrinsic value of the information held by the paper document
The document should be of value to the company for it to be digitized.
Intellectual properties
The company should have rights to the paper document to have it placed in a digital format.
What is the risk of damage on the document being digitized?
The technical aspect
Is the company capable of capturing, describing, storing and making accessibility to the digital format easy.
Mass digitization of documents should not affect the quality of the digital document. Quality digital versions should be available for the users.
Challenges in digitization
Different sizes of paper
You may encounter different paper size which might slow down the process. The standard size of paper is usually A4,
Paper thickness or thinness
The standard paper thickness is usually around 70gsm to 80 gsm but you will encounter documents which are 80gsm and above.
Paper texture
Some paper documents are produced in rough paper such as embossed paper which might affect the clarity of the documents because of the rough surface.
Coloured paper
Depending on the choice of scan whether in black/white or in colour will determine the outcome of the scan. If a colored paper is scanned as black/white it might appear as a solid colour black. A test scan can be done before going through the whole process to avoid double workload.
Bulk no. of documents also can cause challenges because the sorting period becomes longer to ensure that the documents are sorted out correctly..
Security of the documents is also an area of concern which is considered during the digitization process to ensure there is no leakage of information while the process is going on.
Speeding up the process of digitization would require a large no. of personnel. The other alternative is to outsource and leave the employees to continue with their everyday duties.
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Intro
History of writing
inscription on clays to paper
way forward to paperless
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Intro
What is an electronic document management system?
What is an enterprise resource system?
What is the differentiator?
What are the components of an electronic document management system?
Do we really need EDMS in the paperless space
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Key takeaways
- Intro
- Number of factors that make us fear disposing our documents
- How we can manage and dispose our documents legally and in an environmentally friendly way
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Subscribe: The Paperless workplace newsletter Follow me on linkedin website: amolodocs.co.kecadtech-services.co.keEnroll for a free online course to transition
Key takeaways
Intro
Where do you lie?
Are you a hinderance to a paperless workspace or you are an early adopter?
More resources
Subscribe: The Paperless workplace newsletter Follow me on linkedin website: amolodocs.co.kecadtech-services.co.keEnroll for a free online course to transition
**Intro
Going paperless will save you money discussion on this webinar
Hosting: Arthur Githuku, Sales lead Cadtech Services Ltd
Guests:
Vincent Mutula, Digital archiving expert
Jacqueline Odhiambo, CEO Cadtech Services Ltd
You can go paperless whether you are a small and medium business or a corporate. There are tools that fit all in regardless of size.**
If you like the show kindly leave a review. Your comments would make a big difference.
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Subscribe: The Paperless workplace newsletter Follow me on linkedin website: amolodocs.co.kecadtech-services.co.ke ...
**Intro
Reasons:
The system selected is not compatible with your work process needs**
The employees don't have a buy in
Not engaging a consultant to take you through understanding your problem before buying a solution.
Do you really need a document management system
If you like the show kindly leave a review. Your comments would make a big difference to me.
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**Key takeaways
Intro**
**Everyday hurdles business owners go through with there paper and digital documents, whether a lost document made them lose a client or they are having issues with KRA and they are not able to find the required document or a client just wakes up one day after a number of years requesting for documents that had been stored and long forgotten.
Issues that occur every other day in the running of a business, whether a Small and medium business, or a Corporate or any other organization that uses documentation. Is there a solution for this or should we take it as a normal occurrence?
If you like the show kindly leave a review. Your comments would make a big difference to me.**
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**Key takeaways
Intro**
Here is where some factors come into play. Factors which may lead to making right decisions or wrong ones.
- Pricing.
- If the electronic document management system is a good fit.
- Cost reduction
- How user friendly is it?
- How scalable is the system?
- What is the return on investment?
- Will there be a buy in by the personnel who are going to use the system,
- Is the system compatible with the other systems you already have?
**If you like the show kindly leave a review. Your comments would make a big difference to me.
Need help with your digitization process? go to cadtech-services.co.ke Want to go it alone, you can enroll for my free online course to begin your transition journey to a paperless workspace.
For more resources kindly subscribe to my linkedin newsletter and follow me on linkedin website: amolodocs.co.ke**
You want to go paperless
Key takeaways
- Intro
-Some of the factors that would affect the safety of your documents
- Increase in the number of clientele,
- Increase in the number of staff
- Departmental growth
- Increase in Workflow processes within and between departments
- Increase in suppliers competing to provide your company with goods and services.
- Increase in purchase and use of paper.
- Increase in information being handled in a paper based workspace
- Reduced office space
- Creation of a storage area
- The condition of the store
- Natural factors like flooding and also small animals like rodents
If you like the show kindly leave a review. Your comments would make a big difference to me.
Need help with your digitization process? go to cadtech-services.co.ke
Want to go it alone, you can enroll for my free online course to begin your transition journey to a paperless workspace.
For more resources kindly follow me on linkedin website: amolodocs.co.ke
You want to go paperless
Key takeaways
- Intro
-
Prices of paper, toners and cartridges are skyrocketing
-
Do we have to print documents?
-
Going paperless is the way to go to improve business productivity and efficiency.
If you like the show kindly leave a review. Your comments would make a big difference to me.
Need help with your digitization process? go to cadtech-services.co.ke
Want to go it alone, you can join now my waitlist for the online courses and coaching on your transition journey to a paperless workspace.
For more resources kindly follow me on linkedin website: amolodocs.co.ke
Today I'm having a conversation with William Ngetich of Askfin on the impact document digitization with an aim of going paperless is having in the Accounting industry with a focus on bookkeeping.
Key takeaways
- Intro
- What impact would it have if Small and medium businesses would go paperless.
- How does it affect our relationship with the Taxman if all our documents were in digital format.
- How secure would our financial documents be.
- Going paperless is the way to go to improve business productivity and efficiency.
If you like the show kindly leave a review. Your comments would make a big difference to me.
Need help with your digitization process? go to info@cadtech-services.co.ke
Want to go it alone, you can join now my waitlist for the online courses and coaching on your transition journey to a paperless workspace.
For more resources kindly follow me on linkedin website: amolodocs.co.ke
Require help in bookkeeping contact William Ngetich:
Website: www.askfin.co.ke
Email:info@askfin.co.ke
linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/william-ngetich-cpa
Key takeaways;
Transitioning to the digital space will improve our performance and increase productivity levels..
Steps to remove impeding workflow to concentrate on high value work and to make the process seamless and flowing.
1. Identify a painful process, Why do they want to go paperless?
2. Create your leadership team and drive awareness.
3. Mapping out the process to identify digitization opportunities - which entails typical parts like {capturing information, routing information (workflow),retrieving information (archiving & retrieval )
Focusing should be done on how employees in their respective department handle their documents in three core areas that are typically part of any process:
- How do they capture documents that arrive at your organization in a variety of ways — email, fax and even physical mail.
- How do they route information entering your organization and how is it shared with others?— especially when they need to approve, review or take some other action.
- How do they retrieve information which refers to the process of accessing documents.
4 Choose the right solution
When looking for the right solution certain factors would also be crucial to be looked into
Does the cloud matter?
The cloud requires minimal maintenance compared to on-premises systems, allows for rapid deployment, enables solution acquisition at the departmental level, scales better, improves operational flexibility, and does not require huge upfront license costs.
5 Deploy your chosen content management solution
One can start with a test system or implement it in several steps. implementation in phases:
Phase one can be the proof of concept
Phase two can be iteration to the solution
Phase three would be rolling out the solution
The final solution should include
- Intelligent indexing to automatically read key data from invoices and match those invoices match invoices with related purchase orders
- The ability to automatically capture paper documents and quickly import invoices into searchable digital file structures
- Predefined workflow rules for routing electronic documents
- Integration between the document management system and QuickBooks for better information flow
- Can have a “Connect to Outlook” feature that allowed staff to quickly send, receive, and upload documents to a central location, directly from their email accounts
Then the other employees can be trained on how to use the system step-by-step through the new process, for them to understand precisely how it works.
6 Document the process and measure its impact
Documenting the process helps with the successful implementation of a paperless office in other business areas but also with the transfer of knowledge.
What if the employees working on the implementation decide to leave the organization and there are no documents to reference?
How do you measure the impact of going paperless?
More resources read
Sign up for my upcoming online course
We talked about capture in the last episode, today is a continuation and final episode on the series of beginners guide to a paperless workspace and we will look at the next 3 steps of the guide to a paperless workspace. These are process, annotation and sharing of the digital document. This entails breaking down the tools that would be required for going paperless.II believe that by transitioning to the digital space our performance and productivity levels will be on a higher level.
In a space we are doing business with Companies that still have a paper based work process. This means we can’t avoid receiving paper documents like invoices or contracts through mail or courier. It will take time before we reach a paperless state. We are also taking into consideration that more and newer tools are being created leading us to using more of the tools than paper. This gives us an enabling environment for going paperless.
Going paperless the benefit is being able to access a document that we need, right when we need it. Other benefits include reduction in cost of duplication and making copies unlike when using a physical paper document eliminating chaos in your work and this also includes reduction in storage space. To adhere to a paperless workspace, documents have to be structured in such a way that it is easy to search and find easily.
After capturing all the documents both paper and digital, where are they to be stored? Will you store them on your computer, in the cloud or you have an internal server? They all have their advantages and disadvantages. Before you opt for one you have to research and ensure you get one which is most suitable given your situation.
When the decision on the processes, organizing and storing of documents has been made, the next step is to ensure that the documents security is top notch. This is where tools like encryption, redaction and e-signature are utilized.
The digital documents should always be backed up regardless of which system you decide to go for, and the digital document should be protected. If data is not protected it can lead to legal repercussions or loss of reputation.
Version control comes in when tracking documents especially when the document has to be revised or edited a number of times. This ensures proper tracking of the document to ensure that the right document is in the right place. This should culminate into a final version. This is why naming, putting in dates and organizing the documents is very important. With the electronic document management system the audit trail or tracking is already embedded but with the other types of storage systems it has to be done manually indicating date and version number to ensure it doesn’t bring confusion in the long run.
Platforms for sharing digital documents, online such as dropbox, google drive, icloud drive and others. Internal servers allow sharing of files with other colleagues internally. Digital documents can also be shared using removable storage media such as flash disks if storage is being done on the computers. With the electronic document management system the documents are much safer because the documents are shared across the platform with colleagues being able to access the documents depending on their access rights.
Other resources:
https://www.amolodocs.co.ke/blog/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline-odhiambo-090763215/https://amolodocs.ck.page/480a4cc784
Is there a right time to go paperless? Are you ready to go paperless? And when we talk about going paperless what do we mean?
-We are striving to go paperless but working in an environment where we do business with Companies that still have a paper based work process. This means we can’t avoid receiving paper documents like invoices or contracts through mail or courier. It will take time before we reach a paperless state. We are taking into consideration that more and newer tools are being created leading us to using more of the tools than paper. This gives us an enabling environment for going paperless.
Meanwhile by striving to go paperless the benefit is being able to access a document that we need, right when we need it. Other benefits include reduction in cost of duplication and making copies unlike when using a physical paper document eliminating chaos in your work and this also includes reduction in storage space. Going paperless requires a slow thought process while analyzing the needs of each entity and this includes even “one man” businesses. This requires a buy-in from all the stakeholders involved for a flawless process.
There are several steps involved in the process of going paperless which have to be followed to ensure the process is efficient. Though with bigger companies the implementation may be initiated per work process and ensuring it is flowing before moving to the next. Before this a needs assessment is done to understand a company’s requirement. Each Company is unique thus the requirements are also different
-To adhere to a paperless workspace, documents have to be structured in such a way that it is easy to search and find easily.
- The four steps for going paperless are Capture, Process, Annotate and Share.
-Capture is the idea of taking all the paper that comes into the workplace and converting into digital format. Physical paper document scanning is done to convert into digital documents and digital documents from emails and other digital sources are aligned to the workflows.
-Processing comes in after capturing the documents in the system of which saving, naming and classification is done.
-Annotating documents is done using tools like highlighters, redaction, approvals and others that we will talk about later.
-Sharing which might include a single document or an entire library. This enables the document required to be accessed when the need be.
-There are two types of document capturing. One is conversion of physical paper documents into a digital format and the second one is capturing the digital documents into the system.
1 To convert physical paper documents into a digital format we use scanners. There are different types of scanning devices and this is usually defined by the type, quantity and quality of the document being scanned. This will also be determined by the size of the company and how much paper document is being used and also how long they have used paper documents.
Digital document scanner which is used when there are multiple documents. The best preference for digital document scanner would be the OCR enabled.
Flatbed scanners come into our workflow when capturing a few but high quality scanning such as photos.
Smartphones with a downloaded scanning applications.
Flexi Scans are used to digitize microfilms and microfiche to enable accessibility on the go.
2 We also have the digital bits which we want to turn into digital documents. Digital files are stored on our computers in a disorganized format which makes it hard to find a document in the midst of this clutter. These digital documents together with the scanned paper documents have to be named and arranged in organized and named folders for ease of search, use and sharing.
You have been in business for a number of years and as the business is growing and expanding, This could mean increase in the number of clients and also the number of staff, leads to increase paper documents. These will require more space for storage and additional staff to manage the documents.
-Why electronic document management system and not cloud storage? Document management systems is a platform that manages your work process by storing, organizing and managing your documents as electronic files. It has continuity capabilities, it is secure and compliant, has workflow automation and can integrate with other productivity apps. Document management systems and cloud storage can both be used to store and organize documents and they can be accessible from multiple devices, yet with cloud storage you are still handling your documents manually but electronically which includes creating folders manually. Document management system’s platform shares, tracks, securely stores and creates a smooth workflow for data contained within your documents both internally and externally in your organization and its automated.
-Document management systems have a structured, efficient and scalable system lacking from cloud storage which eases document searchability when the need be. A good Document management system has inbuilt folder templates, e-signature integration, business and productivity application integration. How many administrative hours can you save by not having to create folders manually for all the stakeholders, clients or staff and to save documents into the folders manually. You don’t have to download email attachments to the desktop folders continuously. When DMS is integrated it minimizes tedious and repetitive tasks of storing electronic files. It also provides security to sensitive information like financial and personnel records and provides access control for only specified individuals using those files. Security of data through encryption while in storage or on transit. Staff can get access to folders they have been granted permission to only, by just using their username and password, enabling remote working.
-With cloud storage you create the folder structure yourself and will still use your time to file the electronic documents into your cloud storage.
There is a possibility you have paper documents in files and digital documents on your computer or in hard drives. Are they systematically stored? How fast are you able to access a document when you need it?
- Many questions come to mind before initiating the process thus the need for document management with a strategy on how the process will be managed. How are you going to sort them, How are you going to categorize them? Which documents are going to be disposed off and how? Will you create a document management policy, a retention policy and disposal policy? Are you going to use a document management system? If yes, which one is compatible? How are the archived documents going to be stored?
- We will start by sorting out these documents and categorizing them. You can sort them by keeping the ones required for legal reasons together, Then there are documents that are no longer needed and those that are still in use. Duplicated documents have to be identified.
- Old documents being used for legal reasons are then archived as electronic documents.
- Have a simple, standardized naming and formatting of files in place to ease search of files by other employees.
-With electronic document management systems this process is only done during implementation of the system but afterward the process is automated saving you a lot of time going through the storage process over and over again. But with the cloud storage manual sorting, categorizing and storage of documents is a continuous process of which time is always put aside for this recurring process.
The volume, velocity and variety in today’s business information is creating chaos, not having knowledge on how to organize, then use the information productively to reduce your overheads and also use your time productively. While transitioning to a paperless space. This is one of the episodes that will give insight, knowhow and resources to help you transform your workplace from paper to digital. These factors will help you determine your level of the transitioning process from paper process space to paperless process space.
What determines the level of digitization in our workspaces? How can you identify the level of digitization in your business? And is digitization a mindset? Would you be able to increase your level of digitization from where you are? The ultimate level of digitization can be defined by the complete paperless state.
Computers, smartphones, internet and the corresponding software are some of the underlying infrastructures for digitization. Digitization is a sliding scale from basic to medium, to good, to excellent.
Digitization encourages transparency and if your executive team doesn't want transparency and would rather keep everything close to their chest, it makes it even harder to increase your level of digitization. Maybe a possible solution is working with a customer advisory board to increase the level of digitization. This would also mean getting a buy in from the executive team or the business owner having a buy in.
What does your sales process look like? There are even instances in a number of organizations where old-style sales and marketing culture has a preference for delivering information only on request rather than having it freely accessible for example pricing. Is your sales channel deep enough all the way to the individual consumer integrated in your digital presence.?
And are direct customers, business partners, vendors, suppliers all fully integrated in your digital presence?
What does your logistic integration look like? Are orders, requests or anything else being entered manually. How are customers and business partners accessing records of their transactions? Could it be online, courier or via mail? Can the customers see their order or return progress at any time online? Do you have rewards systems for customer activities? Can the customers have access to all the manuals, service descriptions, pricing, and any other need? Do you have a customer community online where customers can meet and exchange experiences? How does the final end consumer find out more information from you?
What number of services, knowledge and information can you provide completely paperless? What is the level of paperless information flow from brochures, to orders, invoices or contracts? Do you still require a handwritten signature on any document? How many technological channels do you support today? Do you support the use of mobile devices and have dedicated mobile apps? Is information exchange possible via social media?
These are just a few of the factors that we look at when determining your level of digitization and these create unique competitive advantages. These can cause disruptive moments in your business and open your eyes to the digitization process of your business. Where do you want to be in your next growth strategy.
Businesses, both the corporate and SMB's. We are all struggling with our performance and productivity with our paper based processes, but we have gotten so used to these struggles that we take them as normal. I’m in support of an efficient and highly productive workplace. This applies to all the employees being able to deliver but also to the decision makers being able to deliver even when they are not in office. Approvals could happen quite fast without being a hindrance.
The biggest questions we ask ourselves come with struggles with lost documents, misplaced documents and looking for particular documents for days.
These struggles occur in all the departments of a company, accounts, human resource, operations, customer service. This episode is important for all of us because this is something that happens to all of us in our careers. I don’t think there is enough conversation around it.
We look at 4 different struggles we go through in our workplaces that slows down our performance and productivity. The struggles in our everyday tasks as we try to accomplish our daily objectives, ang how to avoid them.
1. When dealing with clients, the customer service staff requests for copies of personal documents over and over again when clients apply for loans. This happens because whenever they receive the paper or digital documents they keep them in their archives and nobody is usually willing to go back to the archives to look for them again because it is tedious and wastes a lot of time which could be used somewhere else. The easiest option is to request clients to bring in other copies for the processing of their transactions. This leads to accumulation of unnecessary duplicate documents.
The way to eliminate this struggle is to have a central repository whereby every customer's digitized documentation has been captured and stored in file folders. Accessing them becomes easy for the authorized stakeholders who search by just a click of a button. A document management system is necessary to manage this process.
2. In a no. of companies, there are policies in place where approvals of claims above a certain level can only be done by the CEO. Most of the time the CEO’s are not in office. There are times when they might not be in town and even worse out of the country. These would force the staff involved to advise their clients to wait for the CEO to come back, which depending on his assignment can take long. These are instances which lead to client frustrations and disappointment. The way to go about this is to come up with a streamlined process system where the CEO can be able to approve from wherever he is despite the distance, using his smartphone or tablet.
3. What about instances where documents are produced either physically or digitally but are kept aside either in an out tray for physical document or on the desktop for digital document for later storage. These can accumulate and cause clutter on the out tray or desktop becoming tedious to search or sort and store. Storage is done manually and as you know people tend to avoid such kinds of tasks. Searching for these documents when required can take hours and sometimes even days assuming they are not lost.
4. Sometimes the documents are not even labelled, and we always take it in our comfort zone that it is the way it has always been done. We continue until a crisis like a legal issue occurs or KRA comes calling. Then we realize the importance of having easy access to documents.
When you look back, what can we do differently in our work process by having a proper document management system. This would be a good solution to save us from all these headaches
These are the struggles and strategies on navigating in our workplace documentation.