9 Best Practices for Effective Document Management in 2020

Document Management Software allows companies to transform, store, and exchange various digital documents across a network. This approach helps business managers to reduce the complexity by reducing paper usage.

According to a few sources, as much as four weeks are spent by the managers looking for paper documents lost ever year. Also, almost 20% of staff time is still eaten up if they don’t have proper records management.

When a business is thinking about implementing effective document management in their organization, it is essential to focus on the right aspects.

Practices to Follow for Effective Document Management

Below are nine Best Practices for Effective Document Management in 2020:

1. Identifying the need for Document Management System with business

A document management system is an integral part of the business filing system. Comprehensive software helps businesses convert their office into a paperless one. Before choosing a record management system for your business, you must assess your document management needs. Because even if you do get a savvy document management program, it might not fit into every business operational need if you do not why you want to get one in the first place. So, identifying which feature particular your business needs will help narrow down the options.

Features to look for in a document management system:

• Security and disaster recovery
• Scalability and advanced features
• Usability
• Collaboration and integration

2. Prepare documents for organized storage.

Document-intensive businesses must keep their documents in digital form. It is essential to organize and tag the files before storing them in file repositories. Categorization facilitates data migration when implementing the new DMS. Moreover, it ensures fast and easy document retrieval. 

When choosing the business document management system, pay attention to the document scanning feature. Otherwise, it will be rather challenging to transfer loads of documents into digital form. 

Such systems have several useful features for:

• Civil engineering businesses
• Architecture studios
• IT companies
• Data management businesses

3. Keep the focus on business processes and system automation.

The document management system optimizes the business process and mitigates users’ time and effort. Businesses need to make sure that automation efforts focus on strategies that are most beneficial to the organization’s success. Companies must check that these procedures are in line with the objectives of the document management system.

Benefits of system automation are as follows:

• Reduce time and efforts
• Leverage business system
• Minimal downtime
• Prompt responses

4. Indexing Content

The document management system has minimized the need to search for hundreds of different papers at different places. With Indexing, businesses can search for documents for fast and straightforward document retrieval based on multiple parameters, descriptions, and keywords. Furthermore, advanced systems, such as Comindware, offer a metadata-based search. Tags, signatures, notes and remarks, date, and time-based search locate documents in no time.

Following are the features of Indexing:

• Easy and fast data retrieval
• Metadata based search
• Hassle-free document search
• Time-saving

Also, Read: Digital Document Management: The Future Is Paperless

5. Protect extra-sensitive files

Document management systems maintain a balance between workflow streamlining, transparency, and privacy. If a business deals with extra-sensitive information and private files, it must choose a system with a robust and secure file repository option. Authentication, password system, and safe sharing allow businesses to control access to sensitive documents.

Learning from this best practice has many benefits:

• Securing private documents
• Managing hierarchy sections
• Sensitive-information protection
• Authenticated and safe sharing

6. Document Handling workflow

A sound document management system will support the business’s document handling workflow, integrate documents into the company’s business processes, and enable collaboration within documents. However, before that, companies must get ready to digitize and tag their files. The process allows fast search, identification of the documents, and their retrieval.  

Optimizing document-handling workflow has several benefits: 

• Improved business efficiency
• Automated reminders according to your deadlines, Gantt charts, and schedules
• Immediate insight into documents ready for approval
• Immediate insight into approved invoices

7. Manage document storing and destroying

The document lifecycle depends on the specific business type, legal requirements, and business decision. The document management system can be helpful when it comes to managing the document lifecycle. Tagging documents as active, achieved, or ready for disposal helps you get the best from DMS.

Document lifecycle management has many benefits:

• Avoiding document congestion
• Complying with legal requirements
• Managing data protection
• Manages document lifecycle

8. Check additional opportunities available for automation.

Document management is capable of automating various tasks, leveraging workflows, and collecting data for repositories, software, and alerts. Through automating, businesses can manage documents and gather records. It will further help in making the content discoverable. It will help in identifying different documents and redirecting to the right members of the organization.

Benefits of additional automation opportunities:

• Automates different functions
• Automatic routing
• Integrated workflow
• Easy content searching

9. Opt for a simple user interface.

The document management system handles different issues, but not all functionality needs to display on the screen of each user. A good program would allow administrators to display user-specific elements. By simplifying the user interface business will make it possible for their user to perform tasks without any distraction.

Benefits of a simple user interface:

• Simplified features
• Easy Interface
• Easily understandable
• Addresses issues

Where are these best practices applicable?

These best practice principles apply to a wide range of different, document-intensive industries, namely construction industry, economics, information technologies, aircraft industry, mechanical engineering, to name a few. 

Any industry or business that needs simultaneous coordination between different departments of employees while having insight into changes made in documents should benefit from the document management system.

An efficient document management system can significantly improve business results. It directly affects tracking workflow and meeting deadlines, which are two key milestones of each project. 

1. FileHold

FileHold is a document management software that streamlines and automates the entire document workflow and approval processes. It is a file cabinet for business documents and folders that are stored electronically. It is best suited for large corporations and highly useful for companies concerned about information governance, such as manufacturers and healthcare organizations. 

Feature of FileHold is as follows:

• It offers version control, audit trails to provide accountability as to when, and who modified the document
• It is accessible from anywhere with any device that has a secure internet connection
• It allows easy collaboration between users to share and edit documents

Also, Read: FileHold Review: A Document Management Solution for Enterprises

2. dMACQ DMS

dMACQ DMS is a reliable and powerful document management software that provides robust functionalities for organizing and managing business data. With its easy-to-use interface, businesses can easily upload all the documents into the system. It allows easy integration with other third-party applications and offers excellent insights into the data collection. Besides, its metadata structuring engine will enable businesses to set metadata across organizations’ information banks.  

 

Features of dMACQ DMS are as follows:

• It maintains the historical versions of each document.
• It let business store document in digital form and 
• It allows a business to create its compliance report.
• The system is multilingual — it supports over 130 languages.

3. LogicalDOC

LogicalDOC is a popular document management software that supports the various needs of different organizations. Some of its document management practices include seamless integration into Microsoft Outlook and Office, automatic importing of shared folders, and secure collaboration between users. The system lets the team create, co-author, and coordinate any amount of documents. Its cross-functionality enables businesses to install and use it on multiple operating systems — Windows, Linux, and Mac OS. 

Features of LogicalDOC are as follows:

• It offers a secure and reliable cloud-based environment to store all the business documents.
• It works well on a wide range of software and hardware alike.
• It has an easy-to-use and intuitive interface designed to enhance workflow efficiency.

Closing Notes

Managing and controlling documents can be a complex and challenging task, but overlooking document management is not the right thing to do as it will only hurt your business in the long run.
If a business wants to get the most from their system, these effective document management best practices are imperative for the company. Sure, the document management process may feel frustrating at the start, but taking baby steps will benefit businesses to adopt these practices.
What do you think about the mentioned document management software listed in the blog? Have you ever used them? Let us know your experience of any of these document management software in the comment section below.