Three innovative ways to save your business paper

Does your business have a new year’s resolution to become more eco-friendly? Or perhaps you simply want to reduce office wastage to be more cost-effective?

While there are plenty of obvious ways to go about being less wasteful, one of the simplest of those is by cutting down on paper usage in the office. Of course, cutting down on printing and recycling more are both easy ways to do that which don’t involve much effort.

However, perhaps you’re looking for something a little more innovative and useful to adopt as you go about reducing your company’s paper waste. From online collaboration tools to AP automation software, these are the solutions to consider implementing to save your company paper in 2024.

Switch to digital forms

When it comes to generating paper waste, internal forms are generally one of the worst offenders going. Many companies still use paper forms to log holiday requests, periods of sickness and expenses claims – and there’s usually plenty of those generated in any given month.

Naturally, cutting down on all of these is an easy way to eliminate a bunch of waste and save your company a lot in cumulative printing costs.

By switching over to digital forms your business can instantly eliminate a whole raft of paper wastage, in addition to streamlining the process for staff. Not only that, but online forms are both easier to keep track of and simpler to correct any possible errors in.

Implement AP automation software

Business invoices are another potential printer hog. As you need to maintain a proper paper trail for auditing purposes, it’s easy to end up with filing cabinets stuffed full of paper invoices and order documents.

Just because you need to keep a paper trail, though, that doesn’t mean you have to stick to paper in this case. With the use of AP management software, you can keep all of your invoices safely stored in the cloud and avoid the need to print out a single thing.

More than just that, this type of system can help streamline your entire AP outlook and free up time spent on boring admin for other things.

Use online collaboration tools rather than print-outs

More than sending emails instead of written notes, you can eliminate a lot of paper usage from your office by encouraging greater use of online collaboration tools.

Rather than using print-outs, present documents and information to staff electronically. Systems such as Google Workspace or the Microsoft 365 package are excellent for collaborative editing and record keeping, allowing everyone with access to pool their ideas. Alternatively, pass information back and forth via an internal messaging system.

By keeping such documents and notes in a digital space accessible to the entire company, there is also less likelihood of confusion with regards to any edits or changes. Taking notes on a laptop during a meeting also saves on paper usage.

Beyond just cutting down on office wastage, these digital solutions provide some other key benefits for your company. Improve the efficiency and sustainability of your business now by investing in supportive software to make various aspects of the company run smoother.

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Three innovative ways to save your business paper