What is Document Automation Workflow Software?
Documents are the lifeblood of business. From contracts to invoices and financial agreements, the creation, sharing, and storing of documents is vital for organizations to function. Is the way organizations work with documents as efficient as it could be? Research shows that the average information worker spends nine+ hours per week creating documents – almost a quarter of their workweek!
What is document workflow automation and how can it help companies be more efficient?
What is document workflow automation software? Document workflow software automatically generates documents of the types (Word, Excel, or PDF files, etc.) that employees use every day. Rather than manually creating a document each time they need it, a person can easily select a template, add whatever unique additional information is required, and then automatically produce a completed document that meets the required standards in a fraction of the time it would take to create it manually.
Document workflow automation can be used in any industry and department – but it is especially useful in the following:
- Creating legal contracts
- Generating accounting paperwork (invoices, PO’s etc.)
- Documenting Human Resources events
- Creating Financial Services contracts
- Creating Logistics forms and packing lists
- Building Reports of all kinds
Example of an automated document management workflow
Picture an advisory firm: each time the company’s advisors work with a new customer, they generate several documents, including contracts, information sheets, and personalized quotes containing the customer’s information and financial details.
In the past, the financial advisor would have to create many of these documents from scratch – or copy and paste information from previously created files, before adding details. However, by using document workflow software, the automated process becomes much more efficient – taking a fraction of the time.
Now, the advisor can choose relevant templates, can add or remove pre-approved paragraphs, can insert specific customer details then generate documents automatically. It is then funneled through the company’s document management workflow and sent digitally to the client for signature and internal storage.
5 ways document workflow automation can help organizations
Document workflow software is designed to save knowledge-intensive organizations time and money. Here are just some of the ways it can help:
1. Avoid manual, repeatable work
Workers frequently spend hours creating documents, adding in data, checking for mistakes and printing them out. With document workflow software, this process becomes significantly faster. Employees open up a template, add or remove pre-approved paragraphs, add in extra information and then create the document at the click of the button. Instead of writing up documents every time, they use ready-to-go templates and make changes only as needed. Documents are now generated in minutes rather than hours.
2. Eliminate mistakes
It is not uncommon for legal or contractual documents to run to tens or even hundreds of pages. If staff must recreate these documents by copying and pasting content from earlier files, there is always a risk of mistakes and incorrect information entering a document. This could lead to serious problems down the line, not to mention reputational damage. But, if you use document workflow automation, employees can be confident that all the data held in a template is accurate and consistent.
3. Retain organizational data
In a knowledge-intensive business, a huge amount of information about how things are done is held in the heads of experienced employees. What if a staff retires or leaves the organization? When you have document workflow software in place teams are able to retain huge amounts of that knowledge in ready-to-use templates that new staff can access quickly.
4. Ensures compliance
Business documentation must comply with a variety of regulations – be it compliance with legal standards or personal data collection rules. However, if staff is manually creating documents, there's always a risk that the files they create may not be stored correctly or collect information in the wrong way – which could lead to complications down the road. By using document workflow software it means employees can be confident that templates will be compliant with rules and regulations.
5. Frees employees up to do more high-value work
One of the benefits of document workflow automation is that it saves employees hours of work each day manually creating documents. That means they can dedicate time to more high-value activities, processing more customer information, and ultimately growing your business.
Get started with document workflow automation. Contact us to see what's possible today.
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