Companies’ expenses for printing and sending documents often go unnoticed by financial departments. However, these costs can be high. A study by Coopers & Lybrand, an analytical company, indicated that an employee involved in document management prints an average of about 20,000 documents annually.
This article will explain how to reduce the cost of printing documents and how online document exchange (ODE) services can help with this.
What do companies’ document management costs consist of?
Document management in a company involves direct and indirect costs. And while a former can be measured in monetary terms, a latter requires additional research. Let’s take a closer look at what are the direct and indirect costs of document management.
Direct costs
Direct costs include costs of:
- paper;
- printing equipment;
- its maintenance.
If the company exchanges documents with contractors or separate divisions, it additionally spends money on sending documents, courier delivery, etc.
In particular, according to Nova Poshta’s tariffs, delivery of one document to the addressee costs around UAH 65. Courier delivery costs from UAH 90 to UAH 150. After a counterparty signs the document, it must be returned to the sender. So the cost of delivery doubles.
The company spends additional money when employees make mistakes in documents and have to print and send them again.
A study by Nitro, an American company, indicates that 53% of all paper documents in companies are reprinted due to errors or during the approval process. The total amount of such costs depends on the document flow volume at the company.
Indirect costs
The main item of indirect costs for document management in a company is the working time employees spend processing paper documents: approving, signing, sending, and other actions. Financial departments of companies do not account for such costs in their reports, as they are difficult to calculate in monetary terms. However, global statistics show that such actions take a lot of working time.
In particular, a study by Datapro and the Gartner Group indicated that the average office worker who works with paper documents spends:
- 1 hour — for searching for documents;
- 1 hour — for sending and distributing them within the office;
- 0.5 hours — for archiving.
Totally, an employee spends more than 400 hours of working time annually processing documents.
Working with paper documents slows down work with counterparties: concluding contracts, agreements, etc. For example, courier delivery of documents to regional centers of Ukraine takes 1-2 days, and to remote regions — up to 5 days. In wartime, it may not be possible to send documents by mail or courier to certain areas at all. As a result, the company launches business processes with a significant delay and loses potential benefits.
How online document exchange services help businesses save money
Electronic document workflow helps companies reduce both direct and indirect costs. They spend money only within the limits of the ODE provider’s tariff.
ODE services significantly reduce the time it takes to process documents. According to Vchasno, the time saved on processing one document is as follows:
- signing a document — 10 minutes;
- commenting on a document — 7 minutes;
- approving a document — 5 minutes.
The experience of Vchasno’s clients shows that the amount of savings depends on the volume of document workflow, the specifics of the industry in which the company operates, and its business processes. Let’s take a closer look at the costs incurred by companies operating in various industries and how the Vchasno.ODE service helps to reduce them.
Case 1: Tviy Gazzbut
Industry: Gas and electricity supply services
Number of electronic documents per year: 76 000
Savings: UAH 675,000 to 960,000 per year
Tviy Gazzbut is a supplier of gas and electricity to businesses. The company’s clients include more than 25,000 companies from all over Ukraine. With each of them, Tviy Gazzbut signs at least 2 documents per month: an additional agreement to change the contract terms and a certificate of completion. The company’s total expenses for paperwork amounted to about UAH 2,000,000 per year. Of these, 94% were spent on courier delivery of documents.
In 2022, the company switched to electronic document management with clients. Thanks to this, during the year, it attracted more than 5,000 new counterparties to the electronic documents exchange and saved from UAH 56,000 to UAH 80,000 per month.
Case 2. TAS-Agro
Industry: Agricultural industry
Number of electronic documents per year: 6000
Savings: over UAH 925,000 per year
TAS-Agro is an agricultural company that cultivates more than 80,000 hectares of land in seven regions of Ukraine. The transition to electronic document management allowed the company to solve organizational issues faster and control logistics, transportation of agricultural products, and purchase and repair of equipment.
The company uses Vchasno.ODE to sign contracts, specifications, protocols of disagreements, invoices, and internal orders. During the year of using the service, TAS-Agro saved UAH 925,000 and halved the time spent on documents.
Workflow digitalization in agricultural business reduces costs, increases productivity, and allows you to focus on production rather than operations.
Iryna Yablonska, ODE project manager at TAS-Agro
Read also:
Saving a million hryvnias and freeing up 50% of time: a year of ODE implementation at TAS Agro
Case 3. VUSO
Industry: Insurance
Number of electronic documents per year: 50,000
Savings: from UAH 2,300,000 to 2,900,000 per year
VUSO is one of the largest universal insurance companies in Ukraine. The company signs more than 50,000 documents a year: insurance contracts, cooperation agreements, invoices, and certificates of completion.
By switching to electronic document management, the company has reduced the cost of printing, paper, and courier delivery. The annual cost savings range from UAH 2.3 to 2.9 million.
Thanks to the Vchasno.ODE service, VUSO has significantly reduced the time it takes to process documents. This has saved more than 9000 hours of employee time per year.
The time savings helped to improve customer service. Using Vchasno.ODE, the parties sign an insurance contract in a few minutes. This allows clients to receive insurance payments or start treatment faster. With the transition to electronic document management, VUSO has attracted more than 4000 new customers.
Read also:
The way VUSO Insurance Company saved UAH 2.5 million and valuable employee time via digitalization
Do you want to implement electronic document management in your company?
Vchasno experts will help you optimize your document management and save money.
