What is process automation?
Also known as robotic process automation (RPA) or business process automation (BPA), process automation refers to automating & streamlining repetitive tasks or processes to reduce human input.
For example: Without process automation, you would have to manually extract keywords & important phrases from every uploaded document. This process is both time-consuming and error-prone. But with the help of a process automation tool like a document management system, you can automatically index every uploaded document & organize them into their respective folders or groups.
Benefits of process automation
- Reduces process costs
- Reduces operational delays & errors
- Improves data management & retention
- Increases overall productivity & efficiency
- Increases customer satisfaction
There are different types of process automation tools available to users, like content management systems, document management systems, project management systems, etc. In this article, we will talk about how document management system enable process automation in the workplace.
Process automation with document management system
Document management system with automation provides end-to-end document management solutions by allowing users to scan, organize, store, edit, track, share & secure all their documents in one place.
Document management system like GLOBODOX provide features that automate recurring document processes such as document transfers, approvals, indexing, etc thereby reducing manual work and bringing down document handling costs & time.
5 business processes that can be automated using document management system:
Importing documents from the drive
Every business, big or small, encounters countless new documents every day. Be it invoices, salary slips, inventory requests, customer feedback or something else. Transferring & storing all these documents at a common location can be extremely tedious.
Document management system provide features that automatically transfer new incoming documents to the system. This feature tracks document activity in specific folders on the hard drive & routinely transfers new documents from those folders into the document management system.
Extracting data from uploaded & scanned documents
Data or keyword extraction is a crucial part of document handling. Extracted keywords make it easier to find documents when required.
Users can choose which areas of a document need to be scanned and the system’s OCR will automatically extract data from the selected area as many times as they want. This process is beneficial in extracting key data points like amount, date, client name, payment status etc from document types like invoices, inventory reports, expense reports & more.
Organizing & categorizing documents
Manually segregating documents based on their content & type and transferring them to their respective folders & stacks can take up too much time. To counter that, document management system have something called destination profiles.
Destination profiles are pre-configured directions that are taken based on the document’s content & type. For example, a destination profile created specifically for invoices will transfer every incoming invoice to the ‘Invoice’ folder, document type & stack. Users can also create multiple destination profiles for incoming invoices from different clients to organize the documents even better.
Archiving & disposing of documents
Another day-to-day business process that keeps repeating itself is the archiving & disposal of documents. Archiving protects important documents from accidentally getting edited or deleted, and disposal helps clean out the clutter of old documents
Document management system with automation provides document retention features that automate the document archiving & disposal processes. Users can select any date on which they would like a document to get archived or deleted, and based on their selection the document will automatically move to the archive database or the system recycle bin.
Document approval automation
Document approval delays result in low productivity & thousands of dollars in lost revenue. The primary reason for document approval delays is the lack of coordination & synchronization between the parties involved. More often than not, documents will not reach the approver on time or contain missing or wrong information.
A document management system’s document approval automation feature eliminates all the drawbacks of unorganized document approval methods. Users can design a custom workflow, choose the number of approvers at each step, communicate with other users through comments, track workflow activity and notify users about pending approval tasks at the push of a button.
Conclusion
Process automation reduces manual work & decreases business costs, but process automation works best only when the automation is end-to-end. Document management system with automation provides automation solutions for most document processes listed above. And that is why businesses with large document volumes & low turnaround times need to invest in a quality document management system.
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