How much will it cost to make a Sole Practitioner practice with 180 (approx) clients paperless?
Sylvein Pinto
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Depends, of course.
First I think you have to decide whether you'll just have a paper/paperless cut-off date, before which you've got files and after which you've got the paperless stuff, or whether you want to go back and get past files & correspondence scanned onto the system.
I opted for the former, for which there's no cost involved, but if you want to go the latter route there are companies that will undertake this for you (not sure of their fees, though.)
From then on, it's a case of hardware & software. A good quality document scanner could set you back anywhere from £800 to £2000.
For software, the license per person per year for something like Logical Office (the software I use) is around £500. The software is much more than a paperless office system, but that's what I primarily use it for.
Oh, and if you want to go paperless, then invest in getting all your computers set up with dual screens. Once you've done it, you won't look back.
Hope this helps.
Consider Scanworx (Invu)
We decided to go paperless in the summer and purchased Scanworx, This is Invu software twicked for accountancy practices. We purchased outright for a five users network, but I recall that to have on a monthly fee basis was in the region of £140 per month. A Kodak i40 scanner was about £400 and is extremely fast and efficient.
We opted to scan all archieve records before moving on to active files and had a student undertking this task. It took her less than 6 weeks to complete 10 years archieving.
The scanwox website is http://www.scanworx.co.uk
Whichever solution you decide upon I frimly believe that after the initial work you will not look back, paperless has to be the way forward. We are in the process of looking for new offices and have calculated that we will need approximately 300 sq feet less space as a result of not having paper records.
i am intrigued
Are you intending to replicate your existing processes in a paperless office, or are you going to do things differently to properly get the benefits.
And have you considered where your store your information? Are you going to make use of the "internet cloud" so that you can access your information from wherever - paperless and virtual?
i suppose there are some benefits of converting paper to electronic, but surely the better approach is to never touch the stuff in the first place - in which case what is the point of a scanner?
And that extends to how you communicate - are you considering dropping paper outputs to your clients as well (such as letters etc). After all you can already communicate with HMRC electronically.
If you approach this properly then you should be asking how much will it save rather than what will it cost.
Will always be some paper
Alaistar makes some valid points, though there is likely to always be some paperwork. We often email PDFs of tax returns and accounts to cleints but insist on receiving a signed copy before filing. I would not be happy accepting a digital signature.
The scanner is merely the front end to be able to access documents easily you need software that effectively creates an electronic filing cabinte. Options such as text search are very useful to msearch for a document that may have been mis-filed. Also of course local and ofsite backups are vital. If your server is destroyed or stolen and you have destroyes your paper files, life would not be good
Fire Fighting
I believe that we are expected to keep all paper records in "fire-proof" cabinets but I know of few if any firms that can honestly say everything is locked away in fire-proof cabinets overnight.
For offsite back-up we use cluck-clink not the cheapest but they do appear to be well orgainsed to return all of your data by courier (at a coast) on DVD in th event of total failure. To down load say 5Gb over the internet would be a very long job. However you address backups make sure you test the restore function, don't wait until you need it!
We have never regretted it
I agree that, from a cost perspective, the decision whether to scan all existing paper is crucial. Have a look at what you already have stored of your own in word, excel, PDF and in data format (with us Iris) and chances are it's just not worth scanning all the paper versions again..
We have found cost & time savings ever since, moving to one “double sided” printer/scanner/copier and, unless the client objects, our default method of communication is via email.
We no longer need to use an outside printing firm for stationery and the ability to print & scan double sided has been a real bonus. As far as asking clients to sign & return documents is concerned, we only ask for the signed page back and, with internet tax returns, I think it’s now the case that you merely need an OK via email, ie there is no need to see a signed page.
Much of the change over is in attitude of mind eg, rather than hitting copy hit scan instead.
As mentioned you can also spend money on full e-doc handling and I see that the Scanworx/Invu system can now send all docs (even emails) directly to the Iris client communications tab.
I am lucky that 95% of clients are OK with all this, 2 years ago this was 65%. I hate waste and would still have done this even if only 50% agreed.
Finally, we bought a £300 data fire safe (it also takes care of the chocolate biscuits over the weekend).
Paperless
We went paperless in 2001 so I hope the following helps you
1 We used many scanners but almost always the Fijisu Scansnap but be warned that some of the proprietary paperless soft ware companies can not connect to this.
2 Dual Screens are wonderful - go as large as you can. Get a dual screen card as well of course.
3 Try whicever system on one client first that way you can find out pitfalls
4 WE used xerox paperport when we started and this has looked after us until now. We now have the Keytime Management suite but still use the paperport suite.
5 Alastair's comments are OK but despite 6 years we still have clients without computers.
If I can help you further [email protected] 01883 708090
Finally a comment about servers and backup. Both are essential. You can keep the backup server at your home and have the backing up done over the internet. If you work from home how about at a relative or friend.
You ask about cost - well it will depend on how many users there are and the type of system you want. THe cheapest I can see is xerox paperport at around £100 plus 2 screens and new card say £250. Per User. Cheap Brother scanner with sheetfeeder £180. backup to removalable hard drive x 2 £170.. I am sure you will want a move rebust and friendly system so this will cost more. In time you should need less admin staff.
Please can anyone tell me what happens if you have your records as paper and there is a fire in the office? AS I see it this is as guilty as not backing up your data. Comments pls.
Paul Johnston: why dual screens?
Why are dual screens particularly useful when going paperless as opposed to normally?
Dual screens
Multiple screens are useful in most circumstances, but I'd regard them as pretty well essential for paperless office functions.
Traditionally, you'd have the information that you're working from on a piece of paper, and your application - accounts, tax return etc - on screen. If you go paperless, then you can have tax return on one screen, dividend vouchers on another. If you don't then you'll have to bring the applications to the top one after the other as you transfer data.
Even without paperless offices they are useful to hold accounts on one screen while you do the tax comps or covering letters on the other.
The only problem that we're finding now is that if you've got two screens, you'll probably want three, or four or . . . .!
Dual Screens
I understand some practices are up to three screens. Beyond that it would be just like looking for that elusive piece of paper on an ordinary desk. Where is that cursor?
I see that the2020group have 1/2 day seminars about going paperless. I would recommend that if you want to hear a greater amount said by practioners get on one of these. I did last year and learnt alot more.
I am a 2020 member but a real accountant just in case you wondered
(Bourne Accountancy [email protected])
Dual Screens
Dual screens can be useful in any case. For example have two spreadsheets showing at once. Or have your favourite tax software on one screen whilst composing a letter or e-mail on the other. The general estimate is a 15% to 20% productivity improvement for screen-based work. Not all work - just screen-based.
We generally recommend 19" screens for good clarity of on-screen documents which are electronically stored. Firms using our system get about 90% of their client filing electronic, typically scanning working papers at the end of the job. So it is 'less-paper', not 'paperless'!!!
so
if I am understanding this right, dual screens are required so that you can transcribe information from a scanned document to another system? If that is what paperless means then I can see why it has not caught on!