[1] The Great Debate is brought to you in conjunction with accountsIQ, the outsourcer's first choice for intelligent accounting online.

After the opening [2] and seconding [3] speeches, out latest Great Debate on the paperless office is now open to the floor. The member who makes the biggest contribution to the argument will win a bottle of very fine Rocca 1997. But first it falls to one of our guest speakers offer a summing-up. Last but not least...

David Morgan, CEO, Invu [4]
Shredding the misconceptions

I would argue that the paperless office is far from being a myth. Instead, I would say that the (usually negative) perceptions people have of concept are the myth. It is because people refuse to change their mindset and open their eyes to the clear business benefits of going paperless that we find ourselves in a position relatively unchanged from the time of Harper and Spellman’s research. Indeed, research commissioned by Invu and carried out by YouGov revealed that things have changed - and continue to do so - as the paperless office becomes more prevalent. Although there will always be some paper in an office (post, etc), everyone should aspire to the easily achieved “less paper office”.

For clarity, I would like to tackle the common misconceptions one by one:

• The paperless office has “yet to be achieved in theory by any office I know of”
  The recent YouGov survey revealed that the number of companies opting for a paperless office is growing, and so far, 89% of companies surveyed have up to 90% of their documents stored electronically. In fact, 7% of SMEs in the UK have 91% or more of their documents saved electronically - an almost completely paperless office - showing that there certainly are companies out there which have taken the necessary steps to move their documentation away from paper.




• "Computers lead away from the paperless idyll”
  I would argue that it is not computers that lead away from the paperless idyll, but rather it is the people operating them! What keeps paper in the workplace is the number of people who insist on printing out documents despite having them clearly displayed on a screen in front of them. In fact, the survey from YouGov revealed that 21% of accountants had resisted implementing a digital document management system, despite the proven business benefits, simply because - and I quote - “paper documentation is what’s always been done, and there’s no reason to change it” and “there’s no point in creating a paperless office just for the sake of it - what’s wrong with paper anyway?”

  Re-education is key here, and once people realise that going paperless is going to save them time, help them do their job better and boost the company’s productivity, then there may be more willingness to embrace paperless technology. As Jeff Tansley notes below, paper has been part of office technology at least since 1300 - the way we do business has changed since then, surely the way we use documents must too?

• “There are distinct advantages to paper”
  The advantages of paper come from the aforementioned mindset. People are generally suspicious of change (i.e. to a paperless system), but once the change has been implemented, they get used to the altered circumstances within two to three weeks, and find that its not the huge cultural change they anticipated. With more than 270,000 chartered accountants in the UK, and the YouGov survey finding that 83% waste up to one hour (worth £88 on average) of their time per day looking for documents, it is little wonder that this wasted time is costing them £2 million per day. And so the argument for a change away from ‘tradition’ strengthens. Chartered accountants clinging to old fashioned methods are wasting valuable time trying to locate documents that have been mis-filed, moved to another location or simply lost, costing their businesses dearly.

  26% of accountants stated that they would spend time on business development if not looking for paperwork, meaning that business growth can take a hit - a potentially dangerous situation, especially given the current economic climate. In addition to this, 20% of accountants said that they would go home on time and 12% said they would spend more time with their team, so interpersonal relationships are also at stake.

• “Archiving documents is expensive”
  Accountants surveyed by YouGov who said that they did not yet have a document management system, just over a quarter (27%) were apprehensive about high upfront expenditure; a worry that is most likely unfounded as it has been shown that ROI can be achieved within six months with digital document management software, at a cost as low as £1 per person, per day.
• “Stored paper is generally safe from anything but natural disaster”


The number one threat to paper documents is people. As I have already mentioned, so much time is lost due to mis-filing and loss of paper documents, and sorting out the mess that someone has caused by putting documents in the wrong place is not a quick task, especially if you have rooms full of filing cabinets to search through. To say that documents stored electronically are more at risk than paper is not the case - if they are stored on a server and backed up (which they would be, with any good document management system) then your documents are safe against fire, theft, flood and human error - the most likely threats you’re going to face!

In addition, customer service can be improved with electronic document management. The help desk can provide an answer to a query, simply by quickly searching for a document and having instant access, even if it is classified as an ‘archive.’

Further reading:

Paperless pointers for accountants in business. By Kevin Salter [5]

The Great Debate on the Paperless Office is now open to the floor.