Digital Mailroom

Process Improvement Ideas: A Digital Mailroom

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Digital Mailroom


A digital mailroom is the effective and digital (believe it or not!) way of managing all incoming post. Sorting electronic and paper mail in a timely manner to ensure they reach the right department when needed.

Remember when receptionists could sit for hours each day, opening the post with a letter knife and walking around the office delivering mail to the right person? I do, as it used to be me!

That may still partly be the case for some organisations but these time consuming processes cause delays and affect how businesses communicate with customers and suppliers.

A digital mailroom provides a pathway to change by reducing paper use, limiting the need to print and efficiently organising information.

Think about amount of inbound data your business receives; in the post, via email, phone calls, web orders and then how it’s organised and by who. Is everyone following the same system and is information being stored in the same way?

If the answer is no, things could be getting a little hectic and during busy times, your existing processes could buckle under the pressure.

A Digital Mailroom and Document Management

Digital Mailroom

Digital mailroom solutions mean your incoming post is dealt with and stored in the same way by everyone no matter what format it is received in.

With a Document Management System, paper documents are scanned in while emails can be automatically stored from an inbox. Whether it’s a supplier invoice or a contract with a new customer, all incoming data gets stored in one central and secure location.

Only authorised users can use the system and access to documents can be strictly controlled, for                                    example HR are the only employees able to view staff records.

Integration with Internal Systems

Integration with Internal Systems

With DocuWare’s Connect to Outlook functionality, the system can integrate with Office 365 and automatically store emails from your inbox, making email management simple.

It can remove shared mail box headaches by monitoring a watch folder and when emails meet a certain criteria defined by you on implementation, they are pushed into document trays to be dealt with accordingly. Any incoming post marked as urgent for example, can be immediately forwarded to management.

Once a document is in DocuWare users can choose whether to trigger a workflow. If they select yes, a task is generated for the relevant person in the process. Whether it’s an invoice to be approved or a CV to be read, once the task is complete, a digital stamp can be applied to the document.

Intelligent Indexing

In order for any digital mailroom to operate successfully, accurate data, captured at the start of a process is vital. If incorrect information flows through the business, whether it’s from manual entry or missing information, problems will occur.

Once a document is in DocuWare, Intelligent Indexing runs on it to extract the most important pieces of information that are relevant for the organisation– dates, names, reference numbers etc. This information then becomes the document search criteria, bringing results back                                                              in seconds.

Intelligent Indexing is based on machine learning and with each scan, begins to remember where to find the most valuable information on a document. Any manual corrections are learnt too, continually increasing in speed and accuracy.

DocuWare can be linked with any business system. An invoice can arrive, be processed, stored and pushed to a Finance package without any manual intervention.

GDPR Compliant Software

With so many data protection regulations to follow it’s important to ensure any incoming post containing personal data is dealt with efficiently and compliantly.

The penalties for a GDPR infringement can range from a warning from the Information Commissioners Office to a maximum fine of 4% of an organisation’s annual global turnover.

With this in mind, any system used to process personal data needs to be GDPR compliant. DocuWare can help – it is quick and easy to locate any personal data stored within documents. It can export, correct and delete personal data while ensuring this data is protected for as long as it’s in the system.

The Benefits of a Digital Mailroom

A digital mailroom can be tailored to suit business processes and requirements. By automating incoming mail from receipt, through to capture and storage, organisations can benefit from a reduction in postage, print, physical storage and staff costs.

Adopting a digital mailroom will also help to reduce paper use, increase customer satisfaction and give staff more time to focus on other tasks away from the admin of processing mail.

Information coming from a variety of sources is electronically captured and classified meaning it’s readily available and accessible at any point in a process. Management can easily see where an invoice or a customer order is up to, as well as any tasks that haven’t been complete.

From experience with our clients using document management software, we know this level of automation works and they see the ROI.

If you’re thinking about implementing a digital mailroom, we offer free process assessments that can help.  We will chat with you about how you currently work, understand the challenges you’re facing and explain how an automated solution will streamline your processes.

Working From Home

Working From Home

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As we head into 2021, many employees will have worked from home for nine months with no real date of when they will see the inside of their office building again.  Not only have organisations had to manage people working across multiple locations, but organise hardware and software to ensure work can continue as near to normal as possible.

According to the BBC’s Future Forum research of 4,700 knowledge workers, the majority never want to go back to the old way of working. Only 12% want to return to full-time office work, and 72% want a hybrid remote-office model moving forward.  Is your organisation in a position to offer this flexible working?

Cost effective cloud-based solutions

This year has shown that if anything is going to slow down production, its inadequate technology.  Processes that could once be done seamlessly in the office needed to be replicated in a home environment.  Poor VPN connection, no accessible or centralised documents and processes that fall down when paper can’t be passed between departments has made this difficult.  This is where a cloud document management system can help.

Cloud based software can be used remotely to streamline processes and create automated workflows.  Working in the cloud means problems with internal networks are eliminated and employees can work at the same pace from any location.  A cloud based model can also be more cost effective and means there’s no need to make large investments in new hardware.  It’s suitable for organisations of any size, across any industry and is scalable depending on your requirements.

While working from home compliance issues could arise through data mismanagement, problems with document version control or duplication of effort.  Having the right tools in place to ensure guidelines are followed, minimises risk and provides full process visibility needed by management. Our cloud based solutions have high levels of security, offering strong user authentication, multi-level access control for documents, 256-bit encryption and HTTPS data transfer.

If your organisation is looking to offer its employees continued or enhanced flexibility as we move towards next year, look into the benefits a cloud based document management system could bring.

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The Pandemic will bring changes

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It is nearly a year now since the UK went into lockdown, although we have had a few breaks in the summer where restrictions were loosened, we are now back to where we were before, with the hope that the vaccine will give us hope that life will return to normal around Easter. However, realistically most medical experts believe the summer will be a time when normality may start to come back.

The big question is what does this mean for business? At the start of the lockdown companies reacted as best they could. Employees were instructed to work from home and the government gave help with a wide range of support including notably the Furlough scheme and bounce back loans. This position has been extended but will business be the same when normality begins to take place.

Predicting the future is difficult especially when the business environment is turbulent. Many companies are on their last legs and others are planning how they can gradually manage to restore their position with the years ahead. Will the office look the same? will people start to go back to work from the office again on a full-time basis?  do companies want to retain large offices? and how are business going to work in the future, all leading questions that need to be considered.

Looking at how many people have adapted to working from home it looks like there will be some long-term changes even if we do return to some form of normality in the summer and this is where we need to consider making changes now to manage the position in the future. A strong competitive business has the ability to communicate internally and externally effectively and one area since this pandemic has taken place is the issue of communicating internally. With all the business processes from the accounts department, human resources, sales, order processing, sharing information across different departments, working on projects together collectively, storing information and accessing documents has been difficult. Yes, the Cloud has been a great help, although the biggest issue is finding all the information in one place, working on projects together, sharing and accessing information. Another area that has become a headache is compliance and security and although information is held in the Cloud it does not mean that the information is secure and compliant.

With the cost of running the business and survival being of utmost importance many companies are now looking at ways to reduce operating costs whilst maintaining productivity and having a competitive edge in the marketplace. Investment in the IT infrastructure has never been more important and many companies are looking at a Document Management system to streamline the business to make it far more competitive, as well as linking all their systems together, meaning information is available at a touch of a button, business processes are streamlined, ensuring that business processes are speeded up and the requirement for office space and employee resource is reduced, cutting the costs dramatically for the business and making the company more competitive with plenty of room for controlled growth in the future.

If you would like to look at ways of streamlining your business, whilst improving all your internal business process, then perhaps its time to look at our Document Management software it will put your business back in the driving seat for now and especially the future.

Difficult times are ahead in Business

Difficult times are ahead in Business

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Guy Fawkes tried to bring the country down on the 5th November 1605, the COVID Pandemic is more likely to bring this country to its knees in 2020/2021

Since March, companies throughout the UK have had to make some rapid decisions on how to cope with the immediate effect of this COVID pandemic and how they can operate and, more importantly, how they can survive.

The government came up with several very helpful support packages to help us get through the lockdown and since then we have been employing a number of these schemes to keep the business afloat.  As a number of these schemes are coming to an end in October the big question now is, where do we go from here?

We talked about the new normal with people working from home. Initially, financially for companies this looked an ideal solution to cut costs and continue operating and great for the employees as they did not have to commute and could work flexible hours. In some cases, this has actually been really beneficial for everybody.  Sadly, in other cases, people have found working from home has its distractions, as well as issues communicating properly internally and externally and has had a detrimental effect on the business.

Many businesses now have time to reflect. Initially, they reacted to the immediate issues threatening their livelihoods and put in tools to manage the position. Now, with a second lockdown looming in November, is this pandemic going to cause greater disruption than Guy Fawkes ever could by blowing up parliament?

It’s time to look ahead, respond to the position, accept that we are going to be living with this problem for quite some time and look at how we are going to operate in the future.  What plans, business tools, cost cutting, and employment decisions need to be made to keep in business?

The major costs that spring to mind are the office rent, the wage bill and office operating costs. A number of these costs can be difficult to cut as there are long term agreements in place. However, there are several other hidden costs that can be reviewed and, in many cases, can provide valuable income back into the business.

One area that you can look at immediately is the office operating costs and, if you are having to sadly make redundancies, you need to look at technology that can help manage the new position. This can be in areas such as unique software that provides full document management, meaning information is available at a touch of a button with full security and compliance or internal leases like office equipment that could be refreshed at much lower rates and more suitable for your future operating requirement and needs.

Where is there help?

Our business, Document Workflow Solutions, was set up in a joint venture with Xerox UK to help companies see the future and adapt to the changes companies are confronted with, as well as providing unique and valuable business tools that will cut costs, increase business efficiency and help provide a very competitive edge in your market place. If this is something your business wants to look at, we are happy to provide a free office audit and look at all your document costs and processes.  We have been very successful in helping many organisations make at least 30% savings and, in many cases, even greater cost efficiencies.

African woman working on new building plans while sitting at her desk. Female interior designer working at home office.

Working from Home is this the new working environment

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Many companies now are changing their thought process on people working mostly from home as opposed to travelling into the office every day. With today’s new technology employing all the wonderful new computer tools, the cloud and advanced telecom facilities life would appear to be sorted, or is it?

One area that Xerox -DWS are very aware of is the cost of printing documents especially when buying a small home office multi-functional printer from the internet and buying consumables to run it. Initially this looks like the ideal solution as it’s a low-cost investment in the printer and then you buy the consumables when you need them at a competitive rate.  However, let’s look at this situation more closely:

All printer manufacturers make a fortune by selling the home office print devices cheaply and then selling the consumables on an ongoing basis. This is why print cartridges are so expensive and not only that, they change the printer models regularly so you have to keep buying different print cartridges even though the model you may replace from time to time looks so similar.  Worst still, if something goes wrong, trying to get any warranty work can be difficult especially if you have purchased cheap compatible print cartridges to keep the running costs down. This cancels the warranty and it is cheaper to buy a new one that get the current one repaired.

This may not even be the worst news because, if you are a company who have a number of home workers, trying to control the cost of print is virtually impossible and there are no tools to manage the position from afar so making this part of the IT budget is a nightmare. Another issue is, by using these small individual printers, companies do not have all the business scanning tools to scan documents into the company’s bespoke applications, making the whole process of managing information from the satellite home offices a nightmare.

Don’t despair though because the Xerox-DWS unique new all-inclusive solution for home workers, DocuCentre, is easy to use and offers a fully managed print solution, meaning you don’t need to worry about buying expensive consumables to run the machine or worry about trying to get the printer fixed if you have an issue.  It’s all done for you including onsite fixed maintenance.

IT managers will be happy as they have all the tools to control and manage the printers from afar and the users have a Xerox-DWS DocuCentre that prints high quality documents at speed, cost effectively with all the scan tools to integrate with the main offices business applications.  Added benefits include additional apps on the print device to enhance the home workers experience of producing and managing documents.

The really great news with this system is there is no initial purchase to be made, no long-term contract instead there is a monthly investment and cover for a 36-month period. If your requirements change there is flexibility to upgrade and at the end of the term, you can upgrade to the latest technology, backed by Xerox, the world’s finest Document management company.

To see how the DocuCentre could save your business time, money and hassle with staff working and printing documents from home, speak to us on 01444 462 980

Click on the link below for more info.

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