When scanned we enable the OCR feature so that every item is searchable in Google Drive.
We use the permissions management of Drive to ensure that our accountants can see our bank statements, that our lawyers can see our contracts, and that our staff can each see their HR folder.
The only paper we keep physical copies of are bank statements, receipts and contracts. But as these never need to be accessed unless a dispute or audit requires it, and as they can be found far easier in GDrive, we archive chronologically for storage efficiency and security rather than retrieval efficiency and convenience. Basically... it takes very little space and is stored off-site.
I can't actually imagine running a business any other way.
Now if we can just find something as efficient as a pad on the desk for making temporary notes we'd deal with that last 1%.
Our next goal: Reduce email usage and find collaboration tools that offer better workflow and increased intra-company transparency.
We can use that to verify the state of Google Drive over time as well as to restore should anything ever happen to our Google Drive account (those well-documented instances of people getting locked out of their accounts).
Depends on the country, I suppose. IIRC, in Finland you can ditch the paper copies only after the digital version exists in two places, which could mean GDrive synced with at least one computer, or maybe even the gallery app on your mobile phone.
This doesn't mean we do not keep paper, but every receipt, bank statement, and contract gets scanned ( http://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-ScanSnap-Instant-Sheet-Fed-Sca... ) and goes into Google Drive.
When scanned we enable the OCR feature so that every item is searchable in Google Drive.
We use the permissions management of Drive to ensure that our accountants can see our bank statements, that our lawyers can see our contracts, and that our staff can each see their HR folder.
The only paper we keep physical copies of are bank statements, receipts and contracts. But as these never need to be accessed unless a dispute or audit requires it, and as they can be found far easier in GDrive, we archive chronologically for storage efficiency and security rather than retrieval efficiency and convenience. Basically... it takes very little space and is stored off-site.
I can't actually imagine running a business any other way.
Now if we can just find something as efficient as a pad on the desk for making temporary notes we'd deal with that last 1%.
Our next goal: Reduce email usage and find collaboration tools that offer better workflow and increased intra-company transparency.