What are some ways to reduce paperwork in accounting departments?
Answers
Scan as much as possible. But remember your Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan. Make sure that your server is backed-up continually and you have a well documented and organized structure of folders to store your data. Just like the old fashion file cabinet. If you think you have it, but can't find it...you really have nothing.
We are constantly looking for ways to reduce paper and filing. Expense reports are one of our biggest paper issues. Still trying to find a cost prohibitive solution for electronic submission of expenses. All the pay-by-the-month options don't seem to make sense with regards to price yet. We are a small business (100 employees). Keep asking the questions though. That is what makes people think about it.
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Mark,
Proformative is offering a
Of course it is free and offers CPE credit.
Mark: We use Xpenser and its awesome. Employees take photos of their receipts and can email the flights and itineraries directly to Xpenser and it automatically adds it to their report and month end employees submit them and their manager can approve it from a smartphone or the web. It has all the receipts in a pdf.
Our salespeople(we have 45) love it! Let me know if you want me to connect you with their CEO I have no conflict of interest referring the company it has just mad my life much easier.
Mark,
We use Gorilla Expense for T&E as well as invoicing. It is fully electronic and has made our life much easier. If you need a contact, let me know and I'll put you in touch. I am a big advocate for this tool because of the ease of use and some of the best customer support.
Other than that, we use Dropbox for sharing files. We are equipping some of our conference rooms with projectors so that less paper is printed for meetings. We still use paper and I don't see that going away 100% but it is definitely reduced.
Check out Expensify for paperless and affordable expense management.
www.expensify.com
Also, I've found using Google Forms a cost effective way to manage approval workflow for small companies (purchase requests, travel requests, etc).
Jim
I would suggest you look at ECM (Enterprise Content Management) systems, which are document management, workflow, etc. There are systems for AP, AR and
I am familiar with Hyland Software's AFRM which has been designed for finance teams and eliminates binders and share drives. This solution also drives a tremendous amount of efficiency in the very manual and sometimes paper intensive close process.
We are using scanning. We also using Drop Box from the various (14) distributed locations. Our nest step is to index and integrate with our Sage G/L system.
We are using scanning. We are also using Drop Box from the various (14) distributed locations. Our next step is to index and integrate with our Sage G/L system.
I agree with Jeffrey. Using a combination of scanning and software with workflow functionality really helps cut down paperwork. It can also radically improve turnaround time.
Scan, use workflow and electronic approval tools, and save PDFs.