How To Go Paperless As A Small Business

We’re moving towards a paperless society. However, some businesses are still stuck in the past. If your business still has paper piled high in the office, now is the time to go paperless. Not only does using paper increase your carbon footprint, but it can also reduce productivity and drive prospective customers away. Here’s how to go paperless.

Remove Yourself From Mailing Lists

If you arrive at the office every morning to a pile of unwanted post, you need to spend time removing yourself from mailing lists. Your business has probably been signed up to the industry magazine for 30 years, but it’s time to ask yourself – does anybody actually read it? If the answer is no, it’s time to remove yourself. This is the first step to going paperless.

Set A Time To Purge

Removing all of the paper from the office can seem like a mammoth task. You might spend half an hour rifling through old documents deciding which ones can go and which ones need to stay. But is this really the most efficient way of working? The answer is no. Instead, you should set aside some time to purge the paper from the office. Set ground rules for what documents need to be kept, make piles for shredding and ask everyone in the office to help. This will make the huge task of going paperless seem much less daunting. You should also consider hiring a professional in secure document shredding to help you and the team in this part.

Scan Documents

If you are struggling to decide what to keep and what to shred, why not just scan all of the documents that look important. Create a filing system, so they are easy to find by document name and date. Then, you can forget about them until you need them. This is a quick way of sorting through old paper documents.

Unsubscribe From Catalogs

Many businesses receive industry and stationary catalogs. But not many of them actually use them. Let’s face it, most information can be found online nowadays, and the extra paper just makes the office untidy. Unsubscribe from the catalogs you don’t use and sign up to the email list instead if you want to keep receiving product updates.

Opt For Cloud Storage

Instead of storing all of your documents in a dusty, old filing cabinet, you should opt for a cloud storage solution. Business cloud services are reasonably priced and ensure that your digital documents are protected from physical theft or damage. Plus, moving all of your documents onto the cloud will give you more office space.

Recycle

Understanding what you can and can’t recycle is essential when you go paperless. A lot of your documents will need to be shredded, which means they can’t be recycled with the rest of your paper. In addition, the small shreds of paper can clog up the sorting system, so they need to be recycled separately. Learning about recycling will help your business to streamline the paperless process. Plus, it will help you reduce your business’s carbon footprint, which can attract more customers and be utilized as a marketing tool.