Going Paperless
There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the "paperless" office. With the widespread use of computers, the Internet, and now cloud computing, is it really finally possible to go paperless? Well probably not totally, but you can get pretty darn close. My goal with Pay Per Visit Email was to go as paperless as possible. We incorporated in early 2010 and launched in April, 2011, and so far, so good. The only paper in the office is signed contracts; everything else is electronic. Here is how we are doing it:
Before After
- Banking - We have never written out a paper check. In fact, we never even ordered any. All payments are made electronically through our bank. They use ACH or generate a check to pay our vendors. We use credit cards extensively and pay off the balance once per month with a simple online transfer.
- Development - We use Jira Studio by Atlassian to control our email application development. Our CEO (me), project manager, operations manager, and development team all have access to the system. Any one can comment at any time on any of the issues or tasks that have been created by our project manager. This online collaboration is asynchronous and can take place 24/7.
- Document Management - Our computers are linked to one external hard drive with standard folders created. Electronic documents are saved in the appropriate folder and hard copies that need to be saved are scanned and filed as well. The external hard drive is backed up to the cloud every night.
- Communication - Email is our primary method of communication. We use a corporate Gmail account and Microsoft Outlook. We file all email in relevant folders for future access. Those emails that we do not need to save are deleted and the deleted folder is reviewed monthly to permanently delete email more than 3 or 4 months old.
- Accounting - We use Quickbooks for accounting. Bank statements are downloaded and reconciled, then saved on the external hard drive. Same for credit cards. All information is input into Quickbooks and a back up file created. The back up file is saved to the external hard drive and backed up every night to the cloud.
Some of you will undoubtedly see this paperless concept as a risk. What if something happens to my data? What if we lose power? How can we possibly have no file cabinets anywhere? I think most entrepreneurs, however, will recognize the opportunity of going paperless and adapt. You may have to start gradually and move into it at a steady pace. Give it a shot, you really have nothing to lose except the paper.
David Chitester
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