Without paper forms, you’ll spend less time on administration and filing, require less storage space, and increase sustainability.

But the leading benefit of digital processes in place of paper driven ones is increased efficiency. The immediate effects include reducing the chance of errors, and saving time, but real changes in efficiency come from the integration and communication possibilities fluid, digital data creates. When data is live and cloud-based, right from the point of collection, and barriers of paper are removed, businesses can fast-track each step of the process and communication becomes instinctive and immediate. These cloud-supported workflows are fast becoming a necessity for many industries.

Sending data to multiple destinations instantly and automatically revolutionises business processes.

By simply hitting “submit” on completion of a form, you can send invoices to your server and a client’s email, send thank you emails, send updates of a status on a job management system or accounting software and more, saving hours of administration each week.

By freeing data from paper, its collection, reporting and transfer is enabled, dynamically changing workflow visibility. Paperless forms are the first step in an easy, streamlined process; with the assistance of cloud technology, your business can get data from A, to B, to C, in the easiest way possible.

It’s important that when going paperless, the selected technology underpinning it works as easily as possible. It can take time to get used to new systems, and other changes may be needed once these are set up, but once familiarity with new workflow setups sets in, the rewards are clear.

And while ditching paper is the first step to increased efficiency, get even more out of workflow solutions by integrating with internal line of business systems. Doing so depends on careful examine of processes, and the selection of a workflow system which interoperates with existing software solutions – including the increasingly popular cloud storage and applications in use today, such as Xero, Google Drive, Dropbox and MailChimp.

Going paperless turns real-time data into valuable digital information, opening up new possibilities for what can be done with it – whether it’s applying collected data into visual dashboards, keeping track of trends or communicating actions across a job for more valuable workflow visibility.

ABOUT DAVE ROUSE//

Dave Rouse is a director at New Zealand digitisation software company EasyForms.