The benefits to SMEs of going digital
Why these outweigh the challenges
You may have caught our last blog article, in which we talked about some of the factors which are holding back SMEs from embarking on a strategy to transform themselves into a digital business.
If you missed it, read it here to learn why 21% of SMEs say they lack both time and budget to transform their processes.
The key to unlocking the benefits is to see the longer-term gains as outweighing the short-term challenges. Having analysed the challenges in the last article, it’s the benefits on which we’ll concentrate in the rest of this article.
Beyond the barriers
Digital transformation can be summarized as the replacement of often repetitive manual tasks with more efficient, digital processes; some of which can be automated.
As a provider of software that delivers new and improved process efficiencies for finance and accounting departments, it makes sense for us to look at the benefits through the eyes of a manager running such a department (one that currently uses Microsoft Dynamics NAV as the accounting software).
Nonetheless, the benefits described below can be realised by any department in any business that is willing to invest short-term effort into replacing manual tasks with digital technology.
Benefit #1: Time savings
By sending invoices, statements and purchase orders digitally by email straight from your accounting system (instead of via the laborious process of printing documents and sending them via mail), finance staff can be freed up to perform more profitable work.
Benefit #2: Reduction in paper use
As an extension to #1 above, the resulting reduction in paper use means that less storage space is required for filing physical documents, and the risk of losing such documents through misfiling is also significantly reduced.
Benefit #3: Improved customer service
A further benefit resulting from benefit #1 is the speedier filing and retrieval of documents. Faster location and retrieval means that customer enquiries about billing and statements can be handled more quickly and efficiently with the result that disputes can be resolved faster than with paper alone.
Benefit #4: Improved team morale
Nobody likes to work on awkward, repetitive tasks. It’s unproductive and inefficient, and can lead to poor morale, low job satisfaction and high levels of workforce turnover. By replacing such tedious tasks with automated electronic ones – and thereby deploying people onto more rewarding work – overall job satisfaction and team morale will improve.
Benefit #5: Fewer processing errors
Digital processing of invoices and other finance documents is less prone to handling mistakes than paper processing. By automating certain key functions, the possibilities for mis-keying and misplacing finance related documents is reduced, so overall accuracy and efficiency improves.
What next?
As this case study shows, users of Zetadocs have been able to reduce their use of paper considerably, and instead capture documents digitally, scan and send out electronic invoices and use the system to retrieve stored documents.
Your business can also use Zetadocs for NAV or Zetadocs Expenses as an add-on to your existing NAV solution – just contact us to arrange a demo.
Next steps
Contact Equisys now on 0207 203 4001 to find out how Zetadocs for NAV and Zetadocs Expenses can help you go paperless and deliver competitive advantage for your organisation. Or speak to your NAV partner.