Back when Erik co-owned a bakery with his wife, he worked full time at his day job and he helped at the bakery by taking care of all the back office administrative work. There was a lot of paper documentation that Erik had to take care of – receipts, time sheets, invoices. Lots of paper.
Erik and his wife were very busy and the paperwork would pile up. Organizing and filing the papers was the last thing Erik wanted to do. He’d only work on the pile of papers once every 3-6 months, and the pile would grow to be two or three feet high! The physical stack of papers, and the visible reminder that he was behind on his filing work, was a constant source of stress for him.
He decided that he didn’t want to see all those papers anymore. He put the existing pile of papers in a box and shoved them into the closet, and scanned all new paperwork and shred it. Everything got scanned and shredded.
He’s pulled that concept forward to the company. Array Digital is 99% paper free.
By scanning and saving to a company share, it’s very easy to search for and find a document. Files are named with the date, vendor, and dollar amount to make searching very easy. It’s so helpful that Erik will never, ever, go back to a paper based system again.