All benefits of cloud-based document management systems (DMS)

There is hardly a business that doesn't struggle with heaps of paper consisting of vast amounts of invoices, forms, and other documents. A cloud-based document management system (DMS) can help because it makes business processes efficient and cheaper.  

 

In everyday office life, a lot of documents are produced, including physical and digital documents, invoices, and forms. Some people print them and file them in a binder, others scan them first and archive them digitally. These processes are not only time-consuming and tedious, but oftentimes leave a lot of room for error, especially when archived documents and invoices turn out to be hard to find.

 

At large companies, many document-based processes need to be coordinated among several departments, which makes things even trickier. On average, we spend 30 minutes of office time per day looking for archived documents. This valuable time can be saved by using a cloud-based document management system (DMS). All it takes is an internet browser. There is need to install anything and the system can be used online.

Digitisation and cloud computing help us combine physical and digital documents in a single solution. Authorised employees can save or edit such documents anytime they choose using their PC, tablet, or smartphone. In a DMS, all documents, regardless of where they were created, are managed from a central location. This is a great plus because it saves a lot of time during complex authorisation workflows among different decision-making levels at a company and makes collaboration easier, to name just one example. This makes business processes that can be tedious, e.g., invoice processing, easier, faster, safer, and, above all, more transparent.

DMS makes it happen

But how does this work? Let’s imagine we are processing an incoming invoice. The first step is that it reaches the company, either in paper form or in a digital format. It gets printed or scanned, it is processed manually and then forwarded to the cost centre in question. Subsequently, audit-proof archiving is required, which means the invoice needs to be filed, which can be done in a binder. These are many steps that might take up to several days. Employees in charge oftentimes do not know where the invoice is at a given point, if it has already been authorised or filed. This costs a lot of time and on top of that, causes frustration and trouble.

With the right applications, such workflows can be mapped in a cloud-based DMS. As a first step, every incoming invoice is digitised. Via optical character recognition (OCR), invoices are recorded in a matter of seconds and delivered to a specific digital inbox, which in this case is an invoice folder, located in the cloud. Authorised employees have browser-based access to this folder on their computer, tablet, or smartphone. They can, for instance, review the invoice at any given time, add the cost centre and authorise the invoice at the click of a mouse. Invoice data are then automatically sent to the cost centre and will concurrently be sent to the digital archive, where they are saved in an audit-proof process. It doesn’t get any faster than this!

Tracking made easy

And there is more: thanks to cloud-based DMS solutions, many different workflows, including document tracking and document status, can be mapped. This allows users to check if an invoice or delivery note is being processed by an employee and the status of the document in question.

Access rights can be defined as needed to make sure the right people have the access they need. This decentralised access makes sense in times like these where teleworking or working from home are increasingly popular, especially since processing centrally managed documents via the users’ internet browser saves huge amounts of resources at any company.

Data protection? We've got you covered!

European data centres offer a highly secure solution. Our Post Cloud Enterprise works exclusively with data centres in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, ultimately ensuring the best possible protection for sensitive corporate data. Specific security certificates ensure data protection and data is stored as defined by the EU data protection regulation (GDPR). Data is exchanged via existing  interfaces.

The goal: making things as easy as possible

A cloud-based DMS does not require any resource-intensive in-house infrastructure. The provider (who in this example is Österreichische Post AG) alone is responsible for running and maintaining the system. As a result, clients do not have to pay any licence fees and can immediately start integrating all document-based processes into an easy-to-use software solution.

Your benefits at a glance:

• A comprehensive solution for the digital management of document-based processes
• Web-based access to information independently of the user's location
• Accelerated authorisation workflow
• Saves time and money in document processing