An online document management system can help any business simplify document creation, storage, editing, and managing documents all with one program or tool. If you want to know more about document management software and systems, you should know that they come with several document creation tools from document workflow automation to document processing automation. Document management software has many benefits and it is becoming the norm for any sized business or organization to trust document automation solutions to fix all their document creation and automation problems. 

What Is Document Management? 

Document management is any process that helps an organization create, store, record, edit and retrieve the documents it creates every day. Document management styles can range from traditional – printers, faxes, photocopiers, filing cabinets – to the more advanced, like paperless styles that rely on software, algorithms, and computers to create documents. 

Companies used to rely on paper, manual data entry, and storing files in a storage cabinet, before the internet and the digitization of document creation. Now, documents are created in a single click and can be changed and modified to suit any purpose from accounting and payroll to finance and marketing, which means a new category of managing documents has entered the fray: document management system software. 

With an automation strategy document, companies can pivot from paper-based documents and document creation to a seamless, automated process that eliminates waste, and unnecessary errors and helps companies save money, time, and resources. Document management software can free up your employees to do other tasks while ensuring all your workflows and business processes are executed effectively. 

How Does Document Management Work? 

The way document management works depend on what document management software you’ve adopted or whether or not your company has gone paperless. Computer-and-software-based document creation tools are the easiest to adopt and they work like any other software a business uses and installs on its networks. You have a document creation tool, collaboration tools, storage, and editing options all installed on the same program, so everything should be accessible via a compatible program or user interface. 

Document management software is supposed to create a streamlined document creation process so anyone in your company can use it. Regardless of who created the document or where, someone can upload or save the document to a centralized storage server, where anyone within the same company can find, access, and edit it, if necessary. 

The software interface, dashboard, and usability factors are all unique to the program But a majority of document control management systems include customer and technical support to help any company integrate the software into its existing architecture. The pricing and features of each program are also something to consider when you’re shopping for the right document automation solution. 

What Are Common Use Cases for Document Management?

The most common uses for document management include: 

• Tracking who uses, views, and sends important business documents 
• Ensuring all documents are compliant with legal standards 
• Giving greater access to documents to all employees 
• Securing all documents and preventing unauthorized access 

These are some of the major functions document management solutions offers, along with others like editing tools or a PDF editor, storage capabilities, and collaboration tools like adding comments, redacting or highlighting text, and helping you secure your documents with password encryption or electronic signatures.