There are several good reasons to store your business data electronically instead of using traditional paper files and folders. It’s more efficient, accessible, secure, and scalable. That’s why many businesses are relying so much on DMS or Document Management System. It’s just good for business.
How To Create A Simple Document Management System
If you own a small business, spending thousands to purchase or build a new DMS may not be feasible. Instead, you can derive your own simple system, which is essentially a set of guidelines for creating, storing, securing, and retrieving documents.
Creating Documents
For the sake of simplicity, it’s best to keep the number of file formats down to a minimum. For instance, you can set up a rule to have all documents converted to DOCX, PPTX, PDF, or any other small selection of file formats. Base your choice on what your company needs.
The next thing you need is a consistent naming rule. Many companies prefer to append the date stamp on the file name to make the name more descriptive. Adding date stamps also makes file searches easier.
Storing Documents
Organize the folder structures in a way that’s easy to comprehend to avoid confusion in the future. For a simple system, storing all document on in-house servers would suffice. Of course, you need to schedule routine backups in case the unexpected happens.
You could also store the file on cloud storage, as there are plenty of cloud services with friendly monthly or annual plans for small businesses. Using them won’t break the company’s budget.
If your IT department is short on staff, cloud storage is a great idea. The service provider will be doing all the maintenance so that’s one less thing off your IT department’s shoulders.
Securing Documents
Setting up a simple authentication and authorization method ensures only selected personnel are allowed to access certain documents.
Such a method will also allow your organization to share relevant documents with clients. There will be no more need for them to call back and forth just to get the documents they need.
Retrieving Documents
The beauty of a DMS is the documents are always available 24/7 to anyone who needs them. Once the files are stored digitally in the server, anyone anywhere can access what they need.
To make things easier for people, provide an easy search interface to let people find what they need quickly. Since the files already follow a set of naming rules, the search functions should be straightforward.
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