– BY MADDIE CRAIG | 2023
Running a business generates a ton of financial paperwork. You’ve likely accumulated cabinets full of receipts, bank statements, invoices, and other hard-copy records.
Not only is managing all this paperwork inefficient, but it costs your business time and money.
By going digital with your business’s bookkeeping and record-keeping, you can substantially reduce expenses and free up valuable space.
The Cost of Paper Records
Storing years and years worth of paper records comes with major costs:
Office supplies - filing cabinets, folders, binders, and paper ain't cheap, especially for businesses that have been around for several years.
Storage space - all those records have to physically go somewhere, which means committing office real estate or paying for offsite storage.
Organization time - workers have to take the time to properly file papers so they can be found later.
By keeping financial records in digital format only (for some documents), companies can save on supplies, office improvements, and manual organization.
Digitizing Existing Paperwork
Businesses that have existing file cabinets teeming with paperwork have a couple of options for converting to digital:
Scan everything using a document feeder scanner. This allows you to quickly convert entire file folders of papers into PDFs or searchable formats.
Simply take smartphone photos of important records as you reference them. This takes more time upfront but is also a good option.
Both options allow you to host all records securely in the cloud. And once the digitization effort is done, you can ditch those heavy file cabinets!
Digital Record-Keeping Best Practices
Now you need to put procedures in place to maintain financial records digitally and prevent paper build-up.
Use accounting software that allows the uploading of digital receipts and statements
Request invoices and bank/CC statements in digital formats only
Scan any paper documents immediately upon receipt
Organize records in cloud folders by month/year as backup
Confirm what documents you actually need to keep, which ones SHOULD still be kept as paper, and how long each type of file needs to be kept.
If you follow these tips, your company could see serious savings! Reclaim that office space, reduce overhead, and make your financial records easy to access from anywhere with digital solutions.
Meet The Author
Maddie Craig is the founder of Blue Cypher Bookkeeping, a detail-oriented bookkeeper, and definitely a “numbers nerd”! She is passionate about helping organizations understand the full story of their financials and using it to make more confident decisions and grow strategically. She has experience working with a wide array of clients, including small businesses and non-profit organizations. When not crunching numbers, she and her husband enjoy traveling, being active in the community, and sharing their love for good food with friends and family.