Anyone who, at least once in their life:

• searched for a lost contract in dozens of company binders,
• tried to create a final version of a document, piecing together the comments of several team members, scattered across various files,
• wondered with whom he should actually consult the content of the contract or any other document,
• ran around town (or out of town) trying to get a signature on an important contract from a board member who was absent from the company,
• knows how much time, nerves and missed lunch breaks cost with traditional workflows that use email, paper and pen.

The good news is that you can do things differently! You can carry out the process of creating, reviewing and approving documents quickly, efficiently, 100% electronically and using any device – computer, tablet or smartphone. The solution is to implement an electronic workflow system into the enterprise. We assume that since you are reading these words, you may be considering implementing such a solution in your company. Will the investment be worthwhile? How will the implementation of the system affect the operation of the company? Take 5 minutes to read the article to the end – we hope it will help answer these questions.

Let’s get started! What should you know about workflow tools?

The right system in the right company = saving money

We won’t tell you that every company should invest in a specialized workflow tool. If your company processes 5-10 contracts or other documents per year, you can safely stay with the traditional form, i.e. email correspondence, printing, scanning and manual signing. However, if the number of documents you need to prepare, review, approve and sign is higher, implementing an electronic workflow will bring a lot of benefits to your company.

Using a good workflow system is cost-effective for as few as 20 contracts per year – for electronic reprocessing of 20 documents, the company will pay twice as much as it would pay using paper versions. For 100 documents per year, costs will be 8x less. And in the case of 10,000? Then the company will save so much that you can quietly change the office building for a bigger and more luxurious one. It is worth adding that regardless of the number of documents you will work on, the cost of the software is constant.

Are you wondering how this is possible? After all, how much can a sheet of paper, ink and electricity cost? Obviously not much, however, think also about the cost:

• the courier or employee to personally take care of delivering the contract,
• the work of the person who spends time at the printer and scanner,
• labor in signing the contract by hand (remember that signing a document is usually not just swiping a few marks at the end, but also putting initials on each page, and whoever works with contracts knows that they can have an impressive volume),
• the work of handling mail, saving files, coordinating the process of creating documents, that is, the time that leaks through your fingers, and for which you have to pay.

It adds up to quite a bit, doesn’t it? Well, that’s right, and in the end, penny to penny, and it will be… known.

Valuable hours recovered

In the case of the traditional way of preparing and approving documents, a great deal of time and energy is taken up by the final stage – that is, collecting signatures from all the required people (e.g., from each board member). Of course, also the coordination itself and the process of creating the agreement using text files and an email box are extremely time-consuming. However, these activities are not as stressful as catching the CEO at the last minute at the airport when his signature is urgently needed on an important contract.

The solution is an electronic workflow system integrated with an electronic signature platform, such as DocuSign. Once such a solution is implemented in a company, the CEO will be able to sign a contract using his own smartphone, with a single click, at any time and place, whether at the airport or just after landing in Zanzibar. It is worth noting that such platforms allow the use of not only ordinary electronic signatures, but also qualified signatures.

No communication barriers

In medium and large companies, several or even a dozen people usually work on contracts. The document must be created, reviewed, revised, and approved and signed by management or authorized persons. Several departments are involved in the process – starting with sales and ending with legal. If there are several hundred people working in a company, people coordinating the circulation of a contract often have a problem as to whose email address they should direct the document file to in turn.

Implementing a system for electronic document circulation makes this process much easier. Within the platform, it is possible to create structures and groups of employees of each department who should participate in a given project. The contract always goes to the right person, and this person knows exactly what his task is and what he should do with the document.

If your company implements a system that is integrated with, for example, Office 365, all people involved in the project will be able to work on the same document. This will avoid the need to create a hundred versions of the agreement, from which it is difficult to glue together the final version later. You will be able to work without having to email files and save them on your computer. Just open the file from the server and start working.

SaaS or OnPremise? License or service?

Do you know how the SaaS model differs from On-Premise? SaaS (Software as a Service) is a solution in which software is installed and stored on the service provider’s infrastructure, and users can only access it via the Internet. The On-Premise model assumes that the software is installed directly on the client’s servers. There are two types of electronic workflow systems on the market – some are just based on the SaaS model, the other on On-Premise.

Which model is more advantageous? The solution to maintain full data security and maximum convenience of use is to implement a workflow system based on the On-Premise model and integrated with the internal organizational structure of Active Directory. Such a combination means not only security, but also no need to create new accounts for users, and after all, the fewer logins and passwords, the better. There are systems integrated with the organizational structure of the company, which, in addition, allow fully secure storage of documents in Office 365. A good system for electronic workflow fully integrated with properly selected tools increases productivity, improves comfort and ensures maximum security of work.

Data security

The amount of documents that flow through businesses, especially medium and large ones, every month is enormous. It is difficult to control the paper accumulated on such a large scale. What to do with it? Store it within the company? Entrust the care of the documents to an external warehouse? Companies that use a document workflow system do not have to struggle with such problems. Most contracts, invoices and other documents can be stored exclusively in an electronic repository. Thanks to such a solution, it is possible to find the necessary document in the archive at any time easily, quickly and without having to flip through hundreds of sheets of paper. Contracts or invoices do not get lost, and employees do not nervously search their desks in search of a contract from a few months ago, which in the rush of duties they did not pin into the right binder.

A document workflow platform that is properly selected and tailored to the needs of the company will not only make the process of creating and reviewing documents easy, fast and hassle-free, but will also allow contracts to be signed with a single click. It will also allow secure storage of confidential data and give the entire team the ability to work on a single document. Will implementing this kind of platform be profitable for your company?

We hope you can already answer this question. If there is anything else we can help you with, please email or call us.