In the field service industry, nearly everything you do contributes to a growing pile of documents. From the moment you pick up the phone to your field worker wishing your customer a good day before leaving their property, every step of the process will likely either require or result in a form, record, or file of some sort, and all of it adds up. What you may not realize, however, is that processing, storing, and managing all those documents is costing you far more than the expense of the paper and supplies needed.

The good news is that switching to a paperless workflow is no longer as challenging as it used to be. Previously, moving to paperless processes meant taking stock of everything you need to keep your business running, figuring out which documents need to be digitized, and then finding someone who can develop custom tools to fit your business. These days, there are ready-built solutions made by designers who have already done all the groundwork for you, saving you a lot of the time and trouble that used to keep businesses from going paperless.

But are paperless systems as big a deal as people make them out to be?

What does it mean to go paperless?

To many organizations, going paperless simply means replacing paper documents with digital equivalents. That alone can translate into a lot of time and money saved. You will be able to store a practically infinite number of files without having to invest in more physical space to keep it in. Information can be passed back and forth without anyone having to leave their workstation. And searching for the right document takes seconds instead of minutes (or hours, if the one you needed happens to be at the bottom of a stack of folders).

But really, that is just a small corner of a much larger picture. By digitizing your documents, you are also opening your field service business to all the benefits of software technology. Service request forms, inventory tracking sheets, and inspection reports can be filled out, stored, and passed along much more efficiently in digital format than as paper documents. Automated reminders for service appointments and contract renewal will help you deliver higher quality service to you customers. And with everything kept in a cloud-based system, all your tools and data will be managed by your vendor for you, saving you the effort, time, and expense of maintaining your software and equipment yourselves. Going paperless is about modernizing the way you work.

Why are paperless workflows better?

Paperless workflows boost productivity and efficiency while cutting down on the expenses associated with traditional paperwork. Your staff can complete tasks faster and reduce downtime with the help of software, which can lead to increased volume and drive more revenue. The power of software provides convenient access to actionable information, such as customer data, inventory numbers, and field service reports, which promotes data-driven decision-making that can help your business grow.

Digital information is also less susceptible to physical damage and easier to back up, so you will have the peace of mind of knowing that all your mission-critical data is in a much safer format. And if you use cloud services, which goes together with paperless solutions, all the infrastructure and hardware are managed for you, and you will never have to worry about having to invest in new equipment to keep up with your growth.

What does it take to go paperless?

With software technology today, the most important requirement for a business looking to switch to paperless operations is commitment. As inefficient as paper-based processes can be, they do still get the job done, and it can be challenging to convince people to fix something that doesn’t seem broken on the surface. To ensure that the transition goes as smoothly as possible, it’s vital to have the entire team on board.

As for the software itself, there are now off-the-shelf products that have been designed specifically for businesses in the field service industry, and they can work every bit as well as the expensive, custom-built solutions of the past. Compared to the general-purpose office software you may already be using; these purpose-built solutions have been designed around the same tasks and processes that you and your employees are already used to. This will allow you to get everything up and running with minimal downtime, without having to create your own custom forms as basic documents or spreadsheets. Some of these solutions are also cloud-based products, giving you the benefit of tools and data that are managed and maintained by your provider.

The biggest disadvantage of off-the-shelf software used to be that they were only available as a single, as-is product, so if there were any missing features you needed, you would have had to either make do or find something else. Modern software, on the other hand, is more modular. That means that there are products available that offer the ease of deployment of off-the-shelf software but can still be customized to suit the exact needs of your organization.

Software that enables paperless operations is now a lot more accessible and requires significantly less time and effort to set up properly. With the right solution, you will be giving your office staff a cost-effective, software-powered environment for all their work that will reward your investment with increased productivity and cost savings.

Trades Manager Plus is a full-featured, cloud-based management platform built from the ground up for businesses in the field service industry. It was designed to serve as a starting point for service business looking to modernize by providing them with a foundation that they can customize and build up to address their current and future business needs.

To learn more about how Trades Manager Plus can power your organization’s paperless workflow, e-mail us at sales@tradesmanagerplus.com.