What is the cost of a lost document? There are two components to the cost regardless of the document being either lost or just misplaced.
One component is the potential cost that a decision is made or action taken with incomplete information and there are negative consequences. For instance, if a contract is lost, one party to the agreement could take advantage of the other party. This situation might occur even if a replacement document could be obtained, but maybe not in a timely manner. Therefore, the employee makes a decision based on what they remembered. We call this the “Oh Sh&#” cost because it usually doesn’t get noticed until it is a surprise, and its usually a bad surprise.
Another component is the cost to try to locate the document. Some amount of time is taken…
the new contract. When does it make sense to automate that process?
A technology issue that companies deal with on a regular basis is using one application for managing active or working documents and a separate application for the archived or final documents. Active being defined as documents in the creation or working stage and final being final or executed.
IRS Publication 4837, otherwise known as “Achieving Quality Examinations through Effective Planning, Execution and Resolution” published by the IRS Large Business and International Division, indicates that it would be wise to have supporting documents readily available when audited. Because you want to defend your position and you really don’t want the cost of responding to the audit to be greater than the potential tax impact.
There are plenty of references in our daily lives to the future and yet, somehow, we don’t always spend time to really consider the future. Songs refer to the future, books refer to the future, so do TV shows and movies, the news and much more. Even the Government is now talking about a Secretary of the Future.
In a past era processes were set in stone. Assembly lines were created and they ran for three shifts a day year after year. Big mainframes were programmed and some of those programs still run today. Change was slow and methodical for both consumers and businesses.
We have heard it from nearly every company that we have come into contact with over the past 20 years – “the entire office was recently consumed by the search for the Pensky file”. Most likely 15 to 20 years ago they were absolutely referring to a paper file. Now this reference is to a digital file, which in some cases makes it even harder.
During a recent lunch conversation a comment was made about the great benefits of business intelligence (“BI”) – a tool used to connect lots of information dots to generate useful data. However, that was quickly followed by a second comment about the often failed attainment of those benefits. The culprit seems to be bad or incomplete historical data, ie data stuck in documents or inconsistently entered data.
Documents used to be shared by photocopying and FedEx. That progressed to PDF and email, which has been replaced by free file sharing websites. There are also highly secure deal sites available for Wall Street transactions. The reality is that all of these methods are in use because each one meets somebody’s unique need for security, simplicity or both. 
All of our clients that have implemented our workflow solution have done so to improve their efficiency and profitability. However, it has become very apparent that there are significant added benefits derived from the process metrics reports that are generated.