Businesses don't realise that the time spent looking for documents costs them dearly and is detrimental to their business (31% of respondents said that if they weren't looking for documents, they would be spending time on business development).

There are many benefits to a paperless office, some of which you might not even have thought about.

Here are the top 10 reasons to go paperless:

1. Easy storage: With a digital document management system in place, all documents that come into your office can immediately be scanned and electronically stored, making it easy to send them electronically to everyone who needs it.

2. Automatic audit trail: Increasingly, businesses need to adhere to strict guidelines on compliance and need to store records for many years. With a digital document management system, there are no limits to the amount of documents you can store, and every document will have a unique number –automatically generating an audit trail. This also gives the ability to make changes to documents and still keep the original, helping with compliance and audit guidelines.

3. Time savings: It is no longer necessary to waste time looking for documents. Document searches can be done quickly and gives results in seconds. All the documents are stored in the same organised manner, and are easy to retrieve.

4. Simplicity: With a digital document management system, you can simplify many business processes. Users can action or authorise tasks and transfer data with the touch of a button. Ordering goods and authorising invoices, are just two of the best examples of daily tasks that become more efficient when done digitally.

5. Accessibility: Digital document management lets you create security settings and give all authorised users the ability to view the same document. This makes it easy when more than one user needs access to a single document, or in cases when the company is on multiple sites.

6. Business development: With time saved, executives can spend their time more productively, on developing the business. According to the YouGov survey, 30% of business managers and directors would spend the time they save on business development.

7. Security: A digital document management system stores the documents on secure servers.This means that only authorised users are able to retrieve the documents, making it more secure than paper, which could fall in the wrong hands.

8. Better customer service: A digital document management system allows you to access all customer data, retrieving information such as customer orders and documents, allowing your business to proactively provide customer service, and respond to enquiries faster.

9. Email efficiency: A digital document management system that communicates with your server-based email system will allow you to save emails into the system just like any other document, making it easy for you to search your email history.

10. ROI: Businesses do not need to spend a lot of capital in order to have a digital document management system. There are cost effective choices that will allow you to see a return on investment in as little as 6 months.