You've all heard me talk about this....I blogged about shredding all the paper. Now, it's time to discuss the true value of a paperless existence on the eve of our office seminar on going paperless.
First, let's discuss the term "going paperless." Some of you without knowing it have already gone paperless by using your bank's online billpay system, or by asking Reader's Digest to send your invoice to you electronically rather than by mail. How many of you own Kindles or iPads, and use them to read books? And honestly, who could satisfy their hunger for Lindsay Lohan's most recent jail-avoidance technique without resorting to reading about it online? The trees thank you. But, it can go deeper than that, and for my business clients it is a huge step in the right direction.
EXCEPTION ALERT - I love a handwritten thank-you note. In fact, I think that's the only acceptable way to send or receive a thank-you note. I sent one to a client the other day, and honestly, it's like I had to concentrate on my penmanship as though I was in second grade again. That was sad, but a sign of the times.
Technology is going to nudge us all to become more paperless as time goes on, so why not openly embrace the change now? For instance, my office BEGS to communicate with clients digitally. We hate paper. In any form. We love PDFs, e-mails, faxes even....because our faxes are reproduced into PDFs. Forms that require a quick signature will now be sent over a secure website for an electronic signature. I wish it could be made mandatory that all communication with our office be done digitally, but in a lot of cases, tax clients don't take the time to scan their original information into PDFs. That's OK for now.
SPOILER ALERT - With our individual tax relationships this year, we are offering a sit-down with Meghan where she will help you organize your tax documents, then she will scan them into our server before you leave. But, you didn't hear that from me....
Seriously, though...our standard business relationship these days involves a tremendous amount of work in the cloud. We use very little paper....no manual checks are written, no paper invoices are sent, even financial statements and other planning documents are sent via e-mail or delivered through Dropbox, so we don't even print those anymore. Employees are paid via direct deposit in most cases, and we're working through a process by which we can e-file your quarterly/annual payroll tax returns. When I meet with clients, I use my iPad to take notes and I can also refer to documents through Dropbox on my iPad. Life has changed so much from when I first started in this profession, and it's a welcome change. Gone are the days where we had one entire office devoted to files and storage. In fact, we have ONE filing cabinet now that holds one set of files for a client of mine who works overseas and asks me to hold his mail, and paper that some of you haven't picked up yet (because let's face it, even though we've contacted you several times already, you don't want the paper either so you leave it in my office). I now practice what I preach....
Get rid of the paper! Stop collecting it and then scan in the paper you already have, if you need it. Paper slows you down....it takes up S____P____A____C____E.....it wastes your time with its ever-present need to be managed, moved and reviewed....and once you make the move to go paperless, then reward yourself with a Kindle.
Next year, we are rolling out a service to our service industry business clients whereby we coach them through a process of uncovering value in their internal processes with their customers. We have done it, now we want to share it with everyone else. It all comes back to value, folks. A huge value-added item that we found was the embracing of technology, a large part of which is being paperless and adopting cloud-based technology wherever possible. Forever and ever, amen. The domino effect of recognizing value in one place is evident, when you take a moment and examine the processes. It's a very cool process, so I hope if you're reading this and you're one of our awesome business clients, that you're already excited about doing this process review with me. I know you'll love it!
And come get that paper that you left here, because I'm shredding it next week....
No comments:
Post a Comment