Competitive companies in the construction products industry rely on paperwork to function. Your daily workload is driven by contracts, construction agreements, site plans, terms of conditions, scopes of work, and much more. While the industry moves toward digitization, you may still be relying on piles of paper documents in filing cabinets.
As recently as 2023, only 14% of companies were using digital information management systems. If you haven’t yet made the shift to a cloud-based document management system, you now have the opportunity to radically shift how your business operates.
Read on to learn more about paperless office solutions such as enterprise content management (ECM) systems and how they can transform your daily workloads.
The Real Cost of Paper
Constantly stopping to file and retrieve paper documents makes your team less productive. On average, it takes 18 minutes to find a document. Additionally, 7.5% of all documents get lost. Your administrative team may be spending hours tracking down paper documents in filing cabinets, and there's a chance that your employees won’t find what they’re looking for.
When your documents are lost, you have to contact vendors, suppliers, and other partners to get replacements. If you employ remote workers, paper files are usually inaccessible unless you’re scanning them and storing them online.
Common Bottlenecks in Building Supply Workflows
If you’ve spent a lot of time with paper documents, you understand the frustration of a paper jam in the copier. Just like paper can jam up a copy machine, it also causes bottlenecks in your building supply workflow.
When you have to manually search for a purchase order or an invoice, the approval process is delayed. Paper-based purchase orders and invoicing systems also come with the risk of errors. When a vendor sees an error on a paper-based purchase order or invoice, they have to correct it and fax it back to you or attach it via email, which further delays the process.
Making the move to a digital ECM for building supply companies also improves your customer service. Your customers don’t have to seek out a paper receipt to track their orders or confirm their order details.
As a building supply professional, you’re required to meet various laws, codes, and other regulations, depending on your projects and client base. Whether it’s time for a compliance audit or your firm is asked to provide proof of compliance following an incident, you have to assemble, copy, and transmit paper records, which is a tedious process.
ECM to the Rescue
You can eliminate these time-intensive bottlenecks with a cloud-based ECM system. A digital document management system provides a centralized, structured database for file storage. When your team needs to locate a purchase order, for example, it can find the file in the cloud and share it with ease.
ECM solutions offer secure, role-based access control to protect sensitive data. For example, if your team is working with a client on a confidential project, you can restrict access to building specs and other sensitive data to specific team members through password protection and other safeguards.
Many paperless office solutions are customizable. You can create a document organization structure that works for your company and workflows. This enables your team to quickly locate files and upload. You can also use tags and categories to help your team find information. Version control functions give your employees confidence that they're working with the most recent, updated information.
Tailored for the Construction Supply Space
Not all ECM solutions are created equal. ECM for building supply companies includes features and capabilities specifically for your business. For instance, WorldView’s ECM offers deep integration with DMSi software programs. With an ECM solution that integrates with your invoicing, inventory management, and other systems, you can implement workflow automation.
For example, you can set up your ECM to automatically route invoices for approval based on specific rules. Instead of having an administrative team member compile and distribute invoices manually, the system does it for you so you can get paid faster.
Roofers Mart recently collaborated with WorldView to update its point-of-sale system. Under the company’s previous system, employees across five branches spent a lot of time exchanging paper documents through email, fax, and snail mail. This system led to operational confusion, missed communication, and delays.
WorldView’s document management system integrated with the DMSi enterprise resource planning system Roofers Mart was already using to manage its operations. Implementing this solution saved the company 720 hours of work annually in operational activities, as well as cost savings associated with toner and other office supplies.
Employees are now better able to serve employees with invoices, purchase orders, and other types of data at their fingertips.
Fast ROI With WorldView
If you’re drowning in paper, consider an ECM solution from WorldView. Our team will help reduce your manual workload and improve your document accuracy. You can save time that would otherwise be spent locating and correcting paper documents. Improve team accountability and boost customer satisfaction with a system that gives your team easy access to information.
Schedule a demo today and find out what we can do for you.
