Most businesses rely heavily on the use and storage of documents to help them manage their daily operations, but even with this being the case there are many organisations that simply do not have a good document management system in place. Time is an extraordinarily important resource in business, so losing it unnecessarily to disorganisation can be a fruitless affair. Thankfully, this is where document management comes in. document management doesn’t necessarily relate to fancy programs, and can just relate to some simple processes that you can easily and quickly put into place. in this article, we provide some simple tips to help you get more out of your document management processes.
Where to get started
If you’re finding document management in Australia tough, it might be because you’re just approaching it from the wrong angles. If you’re finding things difficult to keep track of, sometimes the answer simply lies in you deleting things you don’t need anymore. Although you might be saving everything possible for a series of “what if” situations, there’s still a very good chance that you have a lot of outdated documents that you’ll never need to touch again. By dedicating a little bit of time to deleting these unnecessary files, you not only free up space, you can perform a highly productive audit on what you have (including finding things you’d completely forgotten about). By taking the time to closely work out what you do and don’t need, you can also sort your files by format as you go. This can help you develop small databases of specific file types such as PDFs and video files to help you find these files much quicker in the future. This is also a great opportunity for you to implement some basic naming conventions if you don’t already have some in place – this is because some files can be impossible to find solely because they are titled something completely unexpected.
Procedures can make document management much simpler
Everyone being on the same page about document management can quickly lead to the simplification of processes, and introducing procedures for creating a document is a great example of this. Everyone involved in an organisation should have a very good understanding of any relevant procedures they need to follow in order to effectively create, share and review documents. This is something that becomes increasingly crucial as an organisation grows and in instances where collaboration is necessary. Making use of a single cloud storage platform can be one of the best ways you can effectively centralise all of your documents and is a great solution for anyone dealing with large amounts of files, whether they be a sole trader or an entire organisation. With all employees using the same platform you can ensure that documents can be moved and shared easily, as everyone using different platforms can quickly create confusion and cause files to be lost.
Ready to start managing your documents?
Although it may seem intimidating at first, good document management often just requires a little bit of a time investment initially and some good procedures put in place in the long term. This way you can rest easier knowing that you wont have to struggle managing your documents again!
