Whenever a business decides to move toward a paperless office, senior staff members have to create a plan that works best for everyone within the organization. Through the support of IT professionals, they can help streamline this transition and make it as smooth as possible. These changes cannot happen overnight, but with patience, all workers will be able to reap the benefits.

This similar scenario occur​red in Polk County Iowa, where court officials have been working on switching from paper records to the state's central electronic document management system.

Before Polk County joined the network, about 35 out of the state's 99 counties used this setup, incorporating about 40 percent of the state's court documents. Being electronically available, attorneys, plaintiffs and judges are able to access these documents without the hassle of asking a court clerk.

Similar to other organizations, Polk County feared the glitches that could occur from using the software, but Polk County Clerk of Courts Randy Osborn told the Des Moines Register that it was important to trust the IT professionals.

"[Information technology] people constantly [have to] monitor when this happens and they're able to allocate more storage space immediately," Osborn said.

Since the transition began in January, the courts implemented civil court and small claims and family law paperwork into the system's database. By October, Polk County completed the transition by adding criminal cases. Along with the installation of eight computers in the local courthouse, citizens can look up information immediately.

"Long-term going forward there's going to be some great benefits for our office and for the citizenry of Polk County also," Osborn added.

The transition took some time, but it worked out for many parties, who will be able to increase work efficiency.

The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is responsible for reporting severe weather, daily forecasts and climate monitoring, but it is also known for printing nautical charts for fisherman and sailors, according to the organization's website.

For more than 150 years, boaters would look at 4-foot-by-3-foot, heavy lithographic maps to see where there the NOAA identified shipwrecks or other hazards in the sea. However, after 2014, NOAA will stop printing these nautical charts to save printing costs, the Associated Press reported. Making a copy of these large maps would cost the NOAA $20 per graph and they were selling it at the same price, which means the government agency never made a profit from these products.

This paperless initiative stems from competition with small businesses that print their own maps with "more up-to-date and accurate [information]," Captain Shep Smith, head of the NOAA marine chart division, explained. In fact, the NOAA didn't have much of a choice because the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees all federal chart-making told the government agency that this cut had to be made to reduce costs.

Despite cutting production, the NOAA will continue to use the $100 million budget to continue recording information about American waters. Users will still be able to access these maps, but only electronically or through PDFs. There will be a printing option available, but that will have to be done at the individual's discretion. 

In the past, fisherman and mariners used the maps to navigate around specific waterways, Smith told the source.

"Think of them as the roadmap of the ocean," Smith said. "The navigational charts tell you what's under the water, which is critical for navigation."

Companies are constantly looking to find ways to save money, but many executives overlook the cost of printing. Every day, employees print paperwork for to sign contracts or share documents even though these processes can be completed within an electronic document management system. 

On October 24, the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) is hosting "Paper Free Day," inviting businesses to turn off their printing equipment and educate themselves on the actual advantages of these programs. AIIM reported that two-thirds of companies that swapped their business process software saw the investment returned within 18 months, and half received it within a fiscal year.

"Paper-based content clogs up processes—masking workflows, adding delays and limiting flexibility of where and how the process takes place," AIIM explained.

The only way to do truly reap the benefits of this solution is if a business goes "digital from start to finish." Businesses have to look past being reliant on the printer and organize areas where paper waste could be diminished—this requires effort from every employee. For example, archives of paperwork that need to be kept based on a state's document retention policy can be scanned and stored into the company's central system. 

Over in the United Kingdom, about 72 percent of private and public sector workers delay filing paperwork because they need a person's signature, according to a study from YouGov. Instead of taking up desk space for pending signatures, consider obtaining e-signature capabilities. All of this can be achieved through business process software.

Though there are many successful paperless office stories out there, many businesses have yet to implement these systems. Within an organization, it is likely that the finance or human resources departments are using these programs, but it may take years before an organization has an entirely electronic database.

The potential to increase work productivity is there, but HarborPoint owner Don Lueders told AIIM that oftentimes, staff members are holding tightly onto paper records, acting as if electronic alternatives "haven't really changed [work processes] all that much."

However, this is far from true because years worth of records can now be readily available from searching a few document-specific keywords instead of going through folders. Keep in mind that the only way these files are going to make it into the system is if they are periodically input by the records manager.

Just like any document repository system, it must be maintained and updated. Too many times a business owner will blame the application for not meeting their management needs, but the database cannot do all the work on its own. Transitioning takes time, but the effort has to be consistent. Without it, many of us are stuck with "absurd volumes of content" and less space to put it.

Businesses that want to maximize the amount of tasks that are completed in a given day should look into electronic document management systems. A document management provider can help with the transition with this change and recommend specific software that meets your business' needs. 

Time after time, recreational events get fed up dealing with people who purchase fraudulent tickets, even though some have said they buy them from well-known third-party companies like StubHub and Craigslist.

As a way to reduce these issues, some performers and venues have started to allow customers to utilize paperless tickets to reduce waste and increase efficiency. Some events have made ticket purchases even more stringent, allowing attendees to swipe their credit cards upon entry, according to Fox Business.

Though file scanning tickets from a smartphone is a fairly new concept, the Nets decided to implement a club-exclusive card to "protect our customer[s]," Fred Mangione, Brooklyn Nets' chief officer of marketing and revenue, told the Wall Street Journal. The Brooklyn Nets NBA franchise is launching this procedure for their season ticket holders.

Although ticket resellers like StubHub have found that paperless vouchers may "present a real challenge for [their] business," Brooklyn Nets season ticket holders who wish to sell games they don't plan on attending can transfer them via email to friends, family or third-party retailers.

Nonetheless, Mangione recommends ticket holders to post their unwanted tickets on the NBA Ticket Exchange website because, there have been many instances where people would come to a game "with bogus tickets they bought on StubHub."

The Brooklyn Nets would be the 20th team in the NBA to have a paperless ticket program, but these season holder cards also work as a credit card. Each time a person purchases concessions or merchandise on the account, they may win perks like a night in one of the luxury boxes.

Businesses are always trying new projects to work toward a more paperless office, and organizations that want to implement similar solutions can reach out to an electronic document management provider.

Electronic document management is becoming a larger part of a businesses' operations, but a study from the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM) found that that executives are still in the early stages of the transition. 

Even though 74 percent of respondents said that they are in the midst of increasing their paperless office solutions, AIIM realized that not enough tasks are electronically processed.

Based on this information, AIIM recommends that IT staffers should have "constant vigilance to stop paper leaking in the process." The only way a business can truly improve its bottom line through this investment is if more aspects of the software were actively utilized. About 77 percent of participants complete five or fewer tasks electronically. 

"We know that in these very large organizations, especially government agencies, there are hundreds if not thousands of processes that could potentially be made paper-free, so we are still very much at the start of this journey," AIIM researchers explain.

To take it a step further, electronic document management hasn't become a company-wide initiative. Based on the study, about 63 percent of users work in human resources or finance departments. Consultants and logistic companies were found to be the industries most likely to implement these programs. 

Out of more than 60 percent of human resources and finance participants, more than 60 percent of them considered the paperless investment "excellent or good."

Though not many logistic businesses have these capabilities, about 50 percent of organizations that do said that their system has been "good" or "excellent" for their operations.

Once a business implements electronic data processes, the next step for executives is to safeguard their digital assets to ensure strong work productivity for an extended period of time.

Electronic document management systems are more secure than paper files, but ultimately, the information in any system is only as safe as a company allows it to be. In conjunction with the business process software, digital asset management (DAM) will streamline operations, safeguard a company's reputation with their clients and reduce costs, CMS Wire explains.

DAM, like many electronic processes, consists of multiple tasks like annotation of files within a server and the retrieval and distribution of company information, as well as managing the system's overall functionality. DAM is meant to be a cyber security measure—protecting the company from future data breaches and theft. 

Over time, businesses will upload many files and documents into the system, which means that "more than ever, there is direct need for DAM to serve as a core application within the enterprise to manage these assets," CMS Wire contributor John Horodyski writes.

Actively updating a company's DAM will ensure that all information is stored in the correct folders and shared with the appropriate staffers. These tasks may take up a lot of time at first, but IT departments should set up a framework that works for all employees who are responsible for adding new files into the system.

Each time a file is scanned, it should be labeled to ensure it is stored in the right location for the department that relies on these documents. In the world of IT, they call it metadata. Forgetting to input metadata tags for each file can make it difficult for companies to find the paperwork in the future. A lack of organization and structure will complicate an employee's workflow.

Nowadays, cyber security is essential for all businesses. Firewalls and anti-viruses must be supported with passwords and encryption. Chief information officers (CIO) have to work with senior staffers to know which crew member deserves what level of clearance. 

Proper document hosting can expedite compliance requests with executives, clients and local governments. Electronic document management is becoming a larger part of a business' operations.