How many offices are actually paperless?

February 26, 2013

The idea of "going green" is by no means a new concept, and politicians and businesses have taken the goal of moving into a world with cleaner air seriously. San Francisco led the way with their plastic bag ban in 2007, and being LEED-certified is now typical for many new buildings. For offices, filled with desktops, smartphone and tablets, it would seem that going paperless is the norm. Yet many businesses continue to rely on paper, even when the alternative is often more appealing. So how can we make the switch? 

Kip Kypuros, the project manager for a green design and construction firm told  Inc.com that when going paperless, "the tools have been available for years," it's just that most businesses haven't invested time or effort to actually make the switch, even though, as Kypuros explained, going paperless helped their business save time and money. Working with document scanning companies can also help, making the transition faster and more efficient so companies can do what they do best. 

The article also explained that even for non-environmental reasons, becoming an all digital office often has a number of advantages beyond using paper, including efficiency, security and the ability to communicate with others quickly.

"People aren't spending time trying to search for things. It's online and easily accessible, so, from an efficiency perspective, it's absolutely fantastic," Jim Secord, who runs an online accounting company, said in the article. "From an invoicing perspective, we issue an invoice via email and they pay electronically, so there's no check being cut, coming back. You get paid a lot faster."

For Secord and Kypuros' companies, going paperless was almost forced due to the nature of their businesses. But it brings up the point of the benefits of going paperless, as both have discovered. 

Tab Service Company is a leading provider of document scanning and data entry services. As an SOC2-approved service organization, we apply industry-best practices to our approach with clients.