When you’re running a business, there are tasks that must be repeated frequently, such as paying your vendors. These tasks are often tedious and repetitive, taking you and your employees away from more important business. By optimizing these document workflows, you can take back the time that’s being wasted, improving your bottom line and company morale.
The Inefficient Document Workflow
Inefficient document workflows waste a lot of valuable time and resources. Having your employees complete tasks manually that could be automated also introduces a higher risk of error, and leaves your company open to security risks.
For many companies, simple – but necessary – tasks, such as paying a vendor, can take a number of steps, each with the potential to slow the process down, introduce errors, and create a backlog. For example, a vendor payment may look like this:
- Scan an invoice
- Email or otherwise send it to the finance department
- Print the invoice
- Complete any information by hand
- Scan the invoice again with new information
- Save a copy in your records
- Send payment
- Enter transaction in the accounting system
When this has to occur for each vendor your company deals with, you may end up with one or more employees processing invoices for days at a time – instead of doing work that has more direct benefit to your company.
Optimization
The process of paying a vendor can be significantly pared down and automated by:
- Scanning an invoice into the accounting workflow
- Invoice is automatically completed using smart scanning and other technology
- Finance department is notified if approval is necessary due to preset flags on certain values
- Payment is automatically sent and records updated
This improved document process leaves your employees free to do other tasks, only dealing with an invoice when there’s a problem. Without the repeated printing and scanning, your records also remain more secure.
Often, businesses have document workflow problems that they don’t know how to fix. Contact a TDS IT representative today and we’ll help you pinpoint these time-consuming tasks and work with you to develop a solution that works for your business.
