Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) means "green" to the business community.

You hear a lot of talk about going green. I recently moved to Boise from the West Coast where going green is not a philosophy as much a requirement. Obviously when you talk about going green in the business community Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) comes to mind. 

EDMS generates less paper. Typically a person creates a document, report, etc and then prints multiple copies. These are distributed, worked with, and then stored. When you implement EDMS, you have the ability to virtually print into the system, where it can be classified, routed and worked on, all without generating a single piece of paper. Multiple users can view the document at the same time, reducing the amount of copies produced.

EDMS reduces paper storage. We all know that you have to keep records. You do it at home, and you do it at work. Retention schedules can go anywhere from a year to lifetime. Very few retention requirements state that the media needs to be paper. As a rule of thumb, if an e-mail, fax, microfilm, or any other form meets your requirements, there is little to stop you from scanning the documents into EDMS, and storing them electronically. If you need to reproduce these records you can print copies on demand, or better yet, burn them to a CD/DVD or thumb drive. 

I meet with lots of companies in Boise and the surrounding area. Green practices are growing. They are growing for a number of reasons. People believe that it’s important to conserve resources. I agree with this wholeheartedly. I am also finding that companies want to do business with other green companies.

At Fisher’s Document Systems we are constantly looking for ways to be greener. It’s not always easy, but we believe it to be well worth it.

Check back regularly, as we will be detailing our green strategies.