Document Management - White Paper (ID 5277).pdf Jul. 2014 | Page 7

An Introduction to Document Management
Purpose
Electronic document management solutions are designed to organize business files and records
digitally, whether they started out in paper form or were generated by software applications.
Paper files are first converted to electronic format by scanning. This provides a more compact means
of storage, universal access for retrieval, and higher levels of data security and privacy.
A company-wide document management system also controls digital files that are generated directly
through applications -- such as those in the Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel and PowerPoint),
accounting software, CAD, email, and so on. Managing (rather than simply storing) documents
enables quicker access to, and greater command over, business information.

Eliminating Paper
For businesses across the board, eliminating the bulk of their paper documents and records will
immediately eliminate substantial material and labor expenditures.
Companies are also liberated from paper’s inherent limitations as a means of information storage. To
share or distribute paper files, they must be duplicated. To store them, companies must devote a large
portion of their office area or lease a separate space dedicated for physical file storage. The more staff
and files are spread out across locations, the greater the obstacles to access.
Given the large expense and inconvenience of paper documents, maintaining them in digital format
instead leads to a substantial increase in efficiency and decrease in operational costs.

Essential Components
Solutions designed to manage electronic documents should contain the following essential
components:
•

Import – Mechanisms to bring new documents into the system, whether image scans of paper
files or electronic files previously stored on a server or hard drive.

•

Storage – Options to maintain system files via data storage hardware, utilizing one or several
distributed locations.

•

Identity – A scheme to index documents with discrete identities for accurate search and retrieval.

•

Export – A way to port and/or remove items from the system.

•

Security – Placement of password-protection on certain files according to authorized user
security controls.

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EASY DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT