Despite the development of electronic archiving solutions capable of automatically storing, managing and securely sharing documents across an enterprise, massive volumes of paper files continue to fill warehouses in South African cities.
"Many companies are still clinging to paper storage offsite in large warehouses. It is a process that is difficult to manage, expensive and is rapidly taking on nightmarish proportions," says Philippa Dal Medico, channel manager at Square One Solutions Group, a JSE-listed company focusing on IT-based business solutions for SMEs.
"In recent years huge advancements in scanning, document management and compression technologies have materialised that enable us to offer small and medium businesses cost-effective, totally electronic archiving and storage solutions that are simple to implement and manage."
Dal Medico adds that hard drives and backup systems have evolved that cater for vast amounts of information to be effectively stored for 10 years or more. The hardware is supported by robust, reliable and flexible software solutions for automatic storage, secure management and sharing of documents.
Companies with branch offices operating from widespread locations can make use of Web-based storage facilities that securely store data and documents in a central location with access for branches through a Web-based client interface that ensures security yet allows easy access to documents for legitimate users. Stored documents at the central location can be viewed, annotated and printed remotely without any need to transport files or paper.
"Software support extends to knowledge management, electronic form control and content management. The software establishes rules-based workflows, routing and approval of documents while seamlessly auditing and maintaining records of all document actions and annotations," says Dal Medico.
Once documents have been completed and are no longer active, they can be tagged with "finalised status" and then electronically archived to free up working disk space. They can still be accessed when required but cannot be altered or manipulated.
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