For most businesses, the cost of using paper is something you might never think about. And that’s not just about handling paper documents or printing contracts, with the operational demands of paper also seeping into routing, filing, searching, and re-printing documentation over and over again. This is where an Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) addresses most paper-related problems and bottlenecks directly. And in doing so, it can create the kind of clean, efficient operational foundation that small businesses actually need. Here’s how EDMS solutions directly support business growth.
What Is an EDMS?
An EDMS, by definition, is a centralized digital platform for storing, organizing, retrieving, and controlling documentation. But to put it more bluntly, it’s an electronic version of a traditional filing cabinet and the print chain. However, what it does that the cabinet can’t is integrate employee coordination and avoid the entire “Do you have the latest version?” back-and-forth both in and out of the company, all enabled through cloud computing.
First, an EDMS allows businesses to capture documents and store them online (whether by scanning from physical paper, importing from existing files, or creating documentation digitally). Then, various EDMS solutions can be implemented to organize and sort files based on company-specific needs and industry-standard naming conventions.
If properly set up, the EDMS should make all files searchable and accessible (to the right people of course). At the same time, the system maintains a cohesive version history to ensure the files are automatically tracked and updated.
The Main Benefits of EDMS Solutions
The first (and arguably the biggest) benefit of opting for custom EDMS solutions (which are typically in the form of SaaS) is the sheer reduction in paper usage and throughput. When documents are housed in a centralized digital system, you’re unlikely to get a request to “print it and send it to someone.” Approvals, reviews, revisions, and sign-offs of all important documents can all be performed digitally, which means the only things that get printed are the things that genuinely need to be. If a business needs a lot of documentation to track (usually due to a constant need for hiring, onboarding, and HR management), this can drastically reduce paper purchasing, toner consumption, and the wear-and-tear on office printing equipment.
Secondly, the “digital-first” structure drastically speeds up research and sourcing information. A 2023 Gartner survey found that nearly half of polled digital workers struggled to find the data they needed to perform their jobs with any efficiency. But with EDMS, that problem largely disappears. Advanced search, consistent metadata, and a single centralized repository mean that finding a contract, an invoice, or a compliance document takes seconds to minutes at most (so long as the team follows proper tagging practices when logging the document for the first time).
Third, one of the less appreciated benefits of an EDMS is what it does to the editing and revision process. Without a document management system, you can have multiple people working on different copies of the same file, leading to conflict on which version is current and the inevitable need to reprint a “final” document that turns out not to be so final. Having an EDMS avoids this by implementing strict version control or simultaneous editing capabilities, markup tools, and a clear audit trail. Everyone is always working on the same document, and the history of every change is preserved.
Digitizing documentation can also make it more secure. Once you move critical files out of a physical storage space, you can protect them by creating passwords or role assignments, ensuring they are digitally locked from being accessed by someone who shouldn’t.
When you combine all these factors, you can significantly curb costs related to paper usage and documentation follow-through. For large businesses, this can be millions in savings. For example, Johnson & Johnson implemented an EDMS in 2018 and saved 30% in administration costs. An EDMS can essentially pay for itself while you focus on other work.
How EDMS Solutions Line Up With Business Growth KPIs
Growing businesses face a common problem where the systems and habits that worked for 10 employees start to break down when that number reaches 50 or more, or fall apart entirely at 200. Simply put, the volume of documents a company handles scales directly with revenue, headcount, and client load, and without a structured system, it leads to errors and bottlenecks. And most of these end up being due to human error, which becomes a factor that weaves through most of the benefits of implementing EDMS solutions.
Increases Employee Productivity
Time spent searching for documents is time not spent on billable work, client relationships, or strategic projects. When an EDMS eliminates that overhead, the productivity gains are real and measurable. For a 50-person company where each employee can lose even two hours per week to document hunting (which is a figure from a prominent industry report by McKinsey), the recovered time is equivalent to adding multiple full-time workers to the output of the organization.
Reduces Operational Costs
Printing, physical storage, paper, and the labor costs of manual document handling all decline with an EDMS implementation. Digital storage also scales without requiring additional physical infrastructure, which means document-related costs don’t grow linearly with the business the way they would with a paper-based system.
Speeds Up Onboarding and Hiring
Businesses that rely on contracts, proposals, or compliance documentation as part of their sales or service delivery process often find that bottlenecks in those documents are bottlenecks in the revenue cycle. An EDMS streamlines the routing, approval, and execution of these documents, which means deals close faster and projects kick off sooner.
Scales With Company Size and Revenue
Unlike physical filing systems or shared drives held together by informal conventions, an EDMS is designed to scale. Adding new users, departments, or document categories means just adding more server capacity or renting it from a provider. This can be a game-changer for businesses in rapid expansion phases, where operational infrastructure needs to stay ahead of headcount growth.
Reduces Risk of Loss
Losing track of documents (or even more importantly, whether they’re up-to-date), filing errors, and compliance failures all become huge issues in certain fields dominated by paperwork, such as legal and medical industries. It’s more than just losing data, but you could breach confidentiality laws and face severe legal issues.
With an EDMS, these issues are practically non-existent, at least from the technological point of view. Of course, human error can still be a possibility, but even that is extremely rare due to in-built automation and verification.
How to Take the Next Step With EDMS Solutions
If your business is still routing paper between desks, printing documents that get revised and printed again, or losing hours each week to document searches, those are growth constraints in disguise. But an EDMS that’s just tacked on without looking at how it actually helps won’t do much good either.
That’s why you need a reliable document management and digitization partner to determine your bottlenecks and how to solve them efficiently and on budget.
Buckmaster Office Solutions works with businesses in Sacramento to assess their current document workflows, identify where paper and print dependency is costing them, and implement the right EDMS solution for their size, industry, and growth goals. So contact Buckmaster today and let us work our magic so you can focus on your core business.