Document management is the process in which information is created, shared, organised and stored in an efficient and appropriate manner. Choosing the right document management system is essential.

The purpose of a document management system is to store and retrieve documents with ease. Storing documents in an organised, secure environment and makes it easier to find documents.

Create standard rules and permissions when storing documents.

Contracts, Invoices, statements, GRNs, PODs, HR documents, Templates, and a variety of documents during normal business practice.

For example:

Standard business documents and templates and where they are located.

There should be a structure that needs to be adhered to.

Document indexing needs to include a required metadata (Index fields).

Procedures to follow when actioning documents.

What is important in document filing is where the documents are filed and the actions that should follow. To ensure uniformity, consistency, and efficiency when documents require different users actioning, revising, collaborating or editing documents, you need to decide on how that should be done.

When storing documents:

The largest cost with physically storing documents is the cost of people filing and searching for documents. Then there are the other costs of physical storage cabinets, files, paper etc.

The other criteria to archiving documents is to follow good file management practices. When files in your document management system are outdated, expired or ready to be disposed of, PaperTrail allows you to archive old documents automatically.

A simple way to retrieve documents

By following a strict naming convention, documents are much easier to find.

A file naming convention will enable users to navigate directly to where specific files are located.

For instance, a division with a file location could be:

Creditors: Folders – Invoices, Recons, Proof of payments, Supplier contracts, GRNs, Orders, Payment batches

Debtors: Folders – Delivery notes, Invoices, Statements

Folders are labelled according to context; the same way the drawers of a filing cabinet are labelled.

Written by Steve Neaves

Sales Consultant at Egis Software

This post was first published at https://www.papertrail.co.za/document-management-systems-south-africa/