eBridge Solutions Blog

Managing The Paper Pile Up: Staying on Top of Things In The Office #paperless

The paperless office is like a unicorn: you hear about it all the time, but you’ve never seen one. As long as paper continues to appear in offices, business owners can find ways to manage their paper and get better organized and more efficient in the process.

Avoid an avalanche

Paper is a fact of life and always will be, arriving every day by fax, snail mail and delivery truck. A major key to avoiding the avalanche in the first place is your ability to answer the questions  -- “where does it all come from?” and “can I stop it?”

Subscriptions, catalogs, memos, faxes, letters, reports and bills are just a few of the obvious categories. Once you know where the majority of your paper is coming from, you can take preventive measures to reduce the flow; for example, cancel subscriptions, switch to paperless invoices or have people send you e-mails instead of memos or faxes.

Paper, Pile By Pile

After you’ve slowed the influx of non-essential paper, take a look at the documents that still remain in your office. There are typically three categories of paper in an office:

1. Active Paper is associated with tasks you perform frequently. For example: calls to make, forms to fill out and submit, data entry or travel itineraries. Active papers are those that are used most often — daily or several times a week. These belong in active files that are readily accessible — within or next to your desk.

Active files become parts of your paperwork system. To expedite filing and retrieval, it is important to have your filing system set up so that the labels match your “what-do-I-do-with-it” categories, e.g., Clients, Marketing, Reference, Projects, Accounting. Remember to keep the paper flowing to its final destination.

2. Project Paper is paper associated with a longer-term task or goal. Examples: client projects, research paperwork or planning exercises requiring tracking and associated documents or contracts. These are things you are currently working on but don’t need to see daily, not past projects (which will go in the next category).

3. Inactive Paper is needed for backup, legal or personal reasons. Examples: insurance policies, financial statements, retirement planning, taxes, corporate minutes and other similar files. Reference papers are those used infrequently. If at all possible, keep them out of your office. Otherwise relegate them to a file cabinet or bookcase in the least accessible location — top shelves or the back of file drawers. If you are archiving documents for legal reasons, consider turning them into digital files for easy and affordable storage.

One way many businesses are storing archived files is in an online document management system. Inactive paperwork can be converted to digital images and put into a secure, searchable online file cabinet that you and/or your employees can access at any time. But, without the headache of additional file cabinets and off-site storage facility fees.

Stephanie Culp says in her book, You Can Find More Time for Yourself Every Day, “Whether it’s the piles of paper in your office or the clutter in your home, getting organized is a major time-saver. Eliminate what you don’t need, organize the things that you must keep, and put some simple systems into place to keep things from getting out of control in the future.”

Turning Regulatory Compliance Into A Business Advantage

No one wants to hear from their boss, CPA or attorney that they need to adhere to industry, state or even federal regulations or risk penalties. It's more red tape. More aggravation. And, let's face it, more work.

But, there are times when making an investment to tighten up your compliance gaps can actually improve the overall efficiency of your business. Especially when it comes to managing your records.

A document management and retention policy that follows best practices in your industry and meets regulatory requirements (HIPAA, SOX, GLB, The Patriot Act and more) has many benefits that translate beyond just compliance, including:

• Avoiding legal landmines. If you are ever called to court, having copies (date and time stamped, even) of important records could be enough to keep you from paying big fines or - worst-case scenario - going to jail.
• Improving customer service. Access to electronic documents, enables you and your staff can quickly and easily answer customer questions. No more digging for files or copies of invoices.
• Increasing employee morale. Not having to dig for files will make your employees MUCH happier. So will clean desks and being able to work from home occasionally.
• Lowering overall cost of doing business. By converting paper documents to digital files as part of your record retention strategy, you'll be able to reduce the need for paper, toner and other office supplies. You can also cut back on postage, couriers and overnight delivery services and reduce or eliminate on and off-site storage.
• Reducing security risk. Digital documents can be password protected and encrypted. It's much harder for files to end up in the dumpster behind your office if they aren't in paper format.
• Creating a disaster-recovery backup. Digital documents stored in the cloud can be accessed any time, anywhere. So, if your office burns to the ground or is inaccessible for a period of time, you can still conduct business. Not so if your file cabinets are six feet under water.
• Reducing need for in-house IT, servers and support. If your digital documents are entrusted to a professional hosted document management provider, you simplify the work for your IT staff, and eliminate the expense of servers or technical support. Someone else will do that for you.

By going paperless, you'll be meeting more of your regulatory requirements AND you'll realize some additional benefits that will make your business run more efficiently and cost-effectively. In this economy, being more nimble and streamlined could be the business advantage you need to be more successful than your competition.

When Document Management Goes Viral

It starts slowly. Someone in human resources hears about document management at a networking event or trade show. They come back to the office, excited to be getting rid of their paper employee files once and for all.

After a few weeks (okay, months might be more realistic unless they have interns) of using document management, the file cabinets in their department start disappearing. Desks are no longer piled high with resumes and benefit applications. People start to notice the paperless office, but don't know what to make of it.

Until... they receive their first resume electronically. Meaning, someone in HR e-mails a candidate's resume, writing samples and references to a hiring manager in the Marketing Department. There is NO paper involved. There is no paper to be found, in fact.

The Marketing Manager loves the idea of storing archived press releases, marketing collateral and product photos online. So, during the next manager's meeting, she brings up the idea of adding document management in the Marketing Department. The Sales Manager hears about it (and, of course, needs it right away). Legal is curious. Operations would like to add it next year. And the roll out of document management company-wide begins.

Most web-based document management systems are so versatile, any department in any company in any industry can use them. And, fees shouldn't increase much by adding additional users or file cabinets.

If you are currently using document management and haven't rolled it out company-wide yet, now is the time!

In weeks, you can have a customized document management system working for your entire company -- saving everyone time, money and space!

Celebrate your independence from paper with document management

I meant to write this yesterday, but the fireworks started going off and I had to run out and watch. There is so much to celebrate this year if you've started your journey toward the paperless office.

First, congratulate yourself (or your office manager) for taking the first step toward getting better organized and going green.

Second, try to remember the last time you had to get up from your desk to find anything -- unless you really wanted to. That's something to celebrate.

Third, be thankful that when your auditor called and said he was coming out, you were able to give him a secure login to your online file cabinet where your tax records are located, and he never had to step into the office.

Fourth, look around your office. Where are the file cabinets? Where are the messy desks? You've 'prettied' things up while making everyone's lives much easier.

Fifth, cheers to you for trimming your monthly expenses. You've cut down to a case of paper every quarter. You've stopped needing as many office supplies. You've canceled your off-site storage facility.

So many things to be thankful for! And, if you haven't started your journey to the paperless office, you should contact eBridge Solutions for a demo today! By next year, you'll be able to celebrate your independence from paper as well!

Document management as a business imperative

Business at eBridge Solutions is good. We're steadily growing this year, which is more than I can say for many companies. But, we aren't growing as quickly as we were last year. There are many reasons our salespeople are getting from prospects for pushing back or delaying their contract signing. Budget cuts. Staff cuts. Focus on more critical projects. It's frustrating to say the least.

What's going on?

Well, document management is a wonderful tool. It works perfectly in almost any business environment. Using document management, business can save time, money and space. They can also improve customer service and compliance with industry regulations. All while contributing to the green movement.

So, why isn't everyone using it?

I think it's because many people see document management as additional work for them. In fact, our sales team gets more resistance from Office Managers and front-line employees than anyone else - the people who think they will be doing nothing but scanning.

Initially, it will be a little more work. But, there are two things to consider:

1. You don't have to scan in every file in your office right away.

2. Once you've scanned or printed a document into eBridge, you'll never have to search for it again in an overstuffed file cabinet. So, your future workload will be reduced.

Gradually adding documents to your online file cabinet will increase your comfort with eBridge Solutions and help you quickly realize how valuable finding information in seconds can be.

Three months into your experience with eBridge Solutions, you'll understand what I mean. Give it a try! You'll be glad you did!

eBridge document management bridges gap between paper and electronic medical records

For many medical facilities (and any other industry, quite frankly), transitioning from paper to electronic medical records can be an overwhelming proposition. One way to make the switch easier is to start scanning patient records into a document management system, like eBridge Solutions, in advance.

While you can absolutely store patient charts and insurance information in your electronic medical record or health record (EMR/EHR) system, it often takes three to six months to get up and running. If you start scanning in patient information prior to the change, you're doing three things:

1.) You are keeping your staff sane. By scanning documents before moving to an EMR/EHR program, you make sure your employees are focused on just one new application at a time. With web-based document management, they don't need to go through several training sessions to learn how to add patient data and attach records. They just need to know how to scan.

2.) You are saving money. By digitizing records - regardless of where they are stored - you are saving money on storage space and office supplies. You are also saving money on labor by putting documents at your staff's fingertips. Some EMR/EHR systems charge additional for document management or record storage. eBridge may be less expensive.

3.) You are buying time. You may not know right now which EMR/EHR system is best for you. By scanning into an unaffiliated document management system, you can choose the EMR system that works best for you without feeling pressured to do something right away. All of the EMR certification information is just being finalized, so it will take some time to figure out which systems end up on top.

Regardless or when the documents are scanned, all of the documents you scan into eBridge can be retrieved from any EMR/EHR (or other software program) using the eBridge Link.

So, if you are getting ready to make the switch from paper to electronic medical records, consider getting started with eBridge Solutions NOW instead of later. Sit in on one of our FREE webinars every Thursday at 2 p.m. EST.

Audit trail is a powerful feature in document management systems

Almost every document management system I've run across has document audit trails built into their software. eBridge Solutions' audit trail automatically records the date and time a document was added to a customer's electronic file cabinet. It also records the user ID of the person who added it.

In addition, every time a user looks at the document, makes a note on it or edits an index value, that action is recorded along with the corresponding user ID.

Why is this important, you ask? Well, it's the date and time stamp and ongoing string of recorded events that will allow you to legally prove (if you are ever taken to court) that the document was added on a certain date and has not been altered in any way since. It can be considered an original document.

It is also useful if you want to look at the productivity of your employees. The date and time stamp follows them through eBridge, so you could easily see how many documents they've added or accessed during a specific time period. This feature is invaluable when multiple employees are continuously accessing and modifying files within the repository.

By making the audit trail an automatic, real-time feature, the second a document is added, opened or edited, the audit trail is updated with no effort on your part. Can you do that with your paper files? Would you want to? Give eBridge Solutions a try if you aren't already using our award-winning document management system.

Are you too small to need a document management system?

I don't do a lot of selling these days (ok, maybe I've never done a lot of selling), but when I speak with prospects about document management, one objection they often give for not signing up is that they're too small. In the case of eBridge Solutions and our web-based document management system, size doesn't really matter.

We have medical billing clients that have two employees and handle more than 50,000 pages a month. We have sole proprietor financial advisers. We have one-man insurance offices. In fact, when you look at the breakdown of our current customers, a great percentage have fewer than four employees.

How do they do it? Well, in many of these offices, they are scanning less, but using the eBridge Print Driver more. That keeps paper out of their offices for the most part, because they can print electronic documents (like efaxes, e-mails and attachments) right into eBridge without having to print them onto a piece of paper and scan them in.

Or, they might outsource some of their back-file scanning. Or, they may have decided to scan only the new paper coming into the office each day - which greatly cuts down on the amount of staff time you need to spend on eBridge.

However they are doing it, these small businesses are doing MUCH MORE with fewer staff thanks to eBridge Solutions and our web-based document management system.

One of our favorite customers, Liz Menduke of Primary Billing Services says, "I have seen an increase in employee productivity because they do not have to get up and search for a file. Files can be easily retrieved at their desk in seconds. I have saved countless dollars that I used to spend filing and storing paper records. I would highly recommend eBridge for a safe and easy electronic storage solution."

Doing more with less. Small businesses do it every day. Why not do it EASIER with eBridge Solutions?

Alleviate Your Fears in Finding Secure Online Document Storage

If you are looking into web-based document management agencies, but are concerned about putting your most important and confidential documents in the cloud, we wanted to remind you of one thing: Our top priority at eBridge Solutions is SECURITY.

It's for this very reason that companies like Allstate Insurance (they approved us in August, 2006) and thousands of other private, public and government businesses and agencies have put their trust in eBridge over the nine years we have been in business.

Throughout those years we have continued to raise our standards in security measurements to meet the tough compliance demands of our clients. eBridge Solutions is certified to be in compliance with such regulations as the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act (HIPPA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), Federal Information Processing Standardization (FIPS) and the Government Information Security Reform Act (GISRA). 

To ensure your data being transferred via the eBridge cloud is safe, Secure-Socket Layer (SSL) v3(TLS) - the industry standard security protocol for encoding sensitive information - has been implemented by eBridge for mutual authentication, data encryption and data integrity. Your data stored in eBridge is AES-256 Block CBC encrypted, meaning only you and your clients have access to those files (if you give them access). 

Your data is also backed up in real-time in separate data centers in Tampa, FL and Atlanta, GA. Both data centers house redundant web and database servers - fully configured with all software and data - so that in the unlikely event of a failure of any of the data centers, the backup data center will be available. Other security measurements include off-site data backups, access and event monitoring, passwords and physical security that is monitored 24 hours a day.                                 

If that wasn't enough to convince you that your documents are safe with eBridge, contact one of our sales representatives who can elaborate on each security measurement. Visit our web site to register for a free online demo of eBridge Solutions.

Reason #8 to love document management: eliminate couriers!

eBridge Solutions' web-based document management system is the most efficient way to share documents with your customers. Reason #8 to love eBridge Solutions: Let your customers scan documents into your electronic file cabinet and eliminate couriers.

By putting your trust in eBridge, you know your important documents are in safe hands. Your customer scans in their documents that you can then pull up in your own secure electronic file cabinet. This ensures your documents won't end up in the wrong hands, they won't get lost in the mail or accidently taken from the fax machine.

Even waiting just 24 hours for an important document to be delivered can feel like an eternity, by scanning your documents directly into eBridge you no longer have that down time waiting for the courier, overnight delivery service or snail mail. Once a client scans their document into their file cabinet, it will be available to you in mere seconds.

On top of all of that, eliminating couriers with document management will save you hundreds, if not THOUSANDS, of dollars a year. For one low monthly fee with eBridge Solutions you will reduce the amount of paper products you buy, virtually eliminate all postage, photocopies, fax machine and off-site storage.

It doesn't get much better than that. Visit eBridgeSolutions.com for more information and contact a sales representative today. Say 'Bye Bye!' to your courier and 'Hello!' to savings!