A major theme I’ve noticed lately is the concept of going paperless. Digital documents from creation to electronic signature and document storage have enabled people to reduce clutter. Those who scan, email and share documents online can access the information they need as long as they can log into their email or document management system.

What do you need to know to go paperless?

1. Back Up All of Your Documents!

In the traditional paper process, you photocopy documents, put them in a labeled folder and filed them in a filing cabinet so you can retrieve the document as needed.

In the paperless process, you need to back up your documents. You may decide to copy all of your files on a regular basis to an external drive. You may choose to store your documents using a hosting service. DocuSign provides its customers with document storage when they upload documents for electronic signature. Additionally, both senders and signers can download copies of completed documents for their own records.

2. Going Paperless is a Process

Going paperless takes time – you might start with using DocuSign Electronic Signature Service for your sales process and implement for your vendor purchase orders a week later. You may choose to digitize your old records as well and scanning your old documents will take time.

3. Over Time, You’ll Save Space

Given the amount of paper you currently have filed in filing cabinets and whether you choose to digitize your older paper documents, you may find that you can get rid of some of your filing cabinets. DocuSign has customers like Jay Thompson:

Thanks to DocuSign, I can keep an entire filing cabinet’s worth of stuff on a thumb drive.

Fewer cabinets mean more office space. A thumb drive means you can easily keep and access the documents you need, without having to return to the office before reviewing some papers.

4. More Benefits Than Less Paper

While going paperless often means less paper, not no paper, you’ll be able to see other benefits as well. Not only will you see a cost savings because you’ll stop printing, mailing, shipping and storing paper, you’ll also start to see time savings.

With DocuSign’s Electronic Signature:

  • No more driving across town to a client for a signature
  • No more following up because a line wasn’t signed or initialed
  • No more difficult to read faxes
  • Automatic reminder capabilities enabling you to set DocuSign to remind your clients to sign, so you don’t have to
  • Workflow capabilities that mean you get the signatures you need in the order you need them, so you can set it and know DocuSign is taking care of the process for you

What else do you need to know to go paperless, especially in real estate? Let me know in the comments or write a post on your blog and leave me a pingback – I’ll take a look and leave a comment!

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