You’ve heard of companies going paperless, but you may feel daunted by making the conversion.

After all, you’re busy running a company and focused on the day-to-day tasks of making sales and controlling expenses to grow your profits. You may feel bogged down by the task of digitizing your business.

But imagine your workplace without bulky file-storage cabinets, boxes stuffed with papers, freeing all that space in your office and becoming more efficient. Plus, if disaster strikes and you lose all your paper files to a fire or flood, you’ll be grateful for the digital copies.

The holy grail of the paperless office is taking your company to the cloud.

When technology experts refer to the cloud, they mean your company’s data is stored on computer servers outside your office but accessible to anyone who has permission.

The benefits are clear, especially if your staff is scattered in different locations. For example, you might have employees in the field who need to access documents remotely using electronic devices. Or perhaps you have teams of people in different cities who need to collaborate on a project.

Digitizing your documents and making them available in the cloud means there’s no data at your workplace. You don’t need to maintain expensive servers or worry that someone will steal or destroy data from your office.

Scanning and saving documents

If you can spare an administrative employee and you don’t have too many documents, consider scanning documents using a Google Drive account and a scanner.

Once you’ve scanned documents, load them to Google Drive where you can organize them and retrieve them using a keyword search. TechRepublic has a helpful article that explains how to do this in more detail.

If you need professional help scanning paper files because you can’t spare staff or you have too much to scan, consider hiring a document-management company. Search for a local provider or consider using a service such as Iron Mountain.

Be especially careful with customer data. If you are in the health care or financial services sectors, you must comply with strict regulations governing the management of client or patient data.

Take it to the cloud

Many information-technology consultants today have experts that help companies take part or all of their business to the cloud. Speak with other business owners about their experience making the conversion.

Before you decide the cloud is right for your business, it’s important to understand how your firm might benefit from a cloud strategy. For example, IBM published a white paper on the subject that serves as a useful guide.

Technology research firm Gartner also publishes useful information on moving your business documents to the cloud. You can find free webinars and research here.

Weigh the risks to your company’s security and reliability on any systems to replace bulky file-storage solutions. With good technology partners, you can safely digitize your business.

Qorval’s Technology Group as well as our strategic alliance with Phoenix Advantage can provide unique consulting expertise which includes evaluating your firm’s data and information-technology needs. To schedule a conversation please call 239-430-0303.