5 Myths about Going Paperless

What ever happened to the 1975 Business Newsweek prediction of computers making us a paperless society? Instead of realizing that utopian vision, each day, we make one billion photocopies. That’s about $40 million dollars invested each day just for paper—equivalent to distributing 400 million food bank meals daily.

Myth 1: We aren’t technologically ready for a paperless society

Fact: American offices are more than ready to use less paper, and it’s quite affordable. Although scanning files has long been an option, adopting it has been slow.

However, scanning already-printed paper doesn’t make your office paperless or efficient. Electronic forms with fillable fields for questionnaires and documents are easier to complete and require no paper printout. Introducing the regular practice of creating, saving, and storing documents and files digitally will significantly reduce paper.

Myth 2: Going paperless isn’t secure

Fact: Physical paper doesn’t make documents more secure. Snail mail, paper checks, and paper contracts aren’t any more authentic and secure than their digital counterparts. Through the use of encryption and digital signatures, digital documents can be more secure. Digital documents, forms, and signatures are even recognized by government agencies.

Myth 3: Reading on a monitor is too hard

Fact: Being accustomed to reading documents from paper makes it hard to regularly read from a monitor, but it just requires a good monitor that is set up properly for the reader. An optimal monitor setup can also make it easy to locate a few pages that you need to print if necessary. The New York Times recently reviewed several monitors that are good for reading.

Myth 4: Being paperless requires a complete rejection of paper

Fact: The term “paperless,” it doesn’t mean eliminating paper completely. That’s unrealistic. A paperless office is one that strives to minimize paper use. The mission isn’t to eliminate paper, but rather to reduce the amount of money spent and the number of trees harvested due to our excessive use of paper.

Myth 5: Going paperless is too expensive

Fact: Consider the cost of all the paper, toner, printers, and copiers your office uses to produce document that quickly become outdated. A professional records and information management partner can make the task of scanning and file storage manageable, affordable, and secure.

Records Management Center in Augusta, GA provides document scanning and digital storage to clients throughout Augusts, Evans, Thomson, Martinez, GA, Aiken, SC, and Central Savannah River. To find out more, give us a call at 706-724-7982 or complete the form on this page.