One of the latest business crazes to hit our offices is going paperless. There are many benefits to getting rid of paper in the office, especially if you’re a brand-new startup that doesn’t have a huge archive of paper records. For instance, you’ll save money on paper, you’ll make a lot of space since you can get rid of archive rooms and boxes of papers, and you’ll generally be more organized than before.

The benefits of going paperless are clear as day, but what if we told you that going paperless right now might actually be detrimental to your business?

Going paperless usually means making large sweeping changes for people. For instance, your customers might not appreciate that you’re sending them emails instead of letters. In fact, this can be a huge problem when you have seniors in your audience that aren’t accustomed to using the internet. Paper documents can also feel slightly more meaningful and serious than online documents. Getting a letter in the post from a company usually feels more formal than just being sent an email.

As you can see, we’re already scratching the surface of why you shouldn’t go paperless just yet. So in this post, we’ll be offering some of the most compelling reasons why you shouldn’t go paperless just yet.

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Physical media has a lower security risk than digital

Another common problem that we face when going paperless is that it’s harder to secure. With a physical document, someone needs to be physically touching it if they want to read it. You also can’t change anything on a physical document without making some obvious marks that stand out. With digital documents, a hacker could potentially take the document and change it or use it for forgery. Digital documents are also far less safe since a cyberattack could expose your network and grant hackers access to all the information on your network.

This is far more dangerous than someone trying to go into your office to steal a document. So if you’re going to go paperless, make sure you have top-notch security to go with it.

Converting to paperless can take a long time if you’re not prepared

One of the biggest problems with going paperless is that people don’t understand how long and daunting that task is. This is because the majority of the work involves scanning paper records and inputting that data into a new system. This is often done by hand as the accuracy of digital tools can’t always be trusted. There are services such as Parmetech that offer managed print services which can help reduce some of the burdens. Their expertise in the print sector allows them to help you reduce the amount of waste you produce while also improving any printed media that you still need.

Of course, this point doesn’t really count for any business that has yet to start up. If you don’t have any archived paper records then going paperless is much easier. Of course, you’ll still be printing out the occasional document but you can still consider yourself a mostly-paperless office.

Documents are still useful and often more convenient

One of the inherent problems with digital documents is that you still need a device to view them. For example, you might need a laptop, smartphone or tablet to view a bank statement if it’s digital. This can create a lot of different issues depending on the circumstances. Sometimes, it’s best to just have a physical document that you can scribble on, make notes on and also share with others.

In short, going paperless makes sense for a lot of things, but it’s not always the answer to all of your problems. If you’re serious about going paperless, then you need to remember that the whole idea behind it is to optimise your workflow, not make it harder. In many cases, sticking to paper can be the more convenient option.

Some final words

While going paperless has some long-term benefits, the takeaway from this article is this; don’t thrust yourself into a paperless workflow just yet. You’re probably still going to be printing documents now and then, you’ll probably be writing with a pen or pencil soon and going completely paperless is a daunting and virtually impossible task. The reality is that we need a mix of both digital and physical in our workflow. Too much of one can cause inefficiencies, and it’s best that we combine the best of both.

So for now, don’t rush into the concept of a paperless office. Instead, you should be thinking about how you can reduce the amount of paper waste you create. You can also think more about optimizing your workflow so that it doesn’t require paper while also being faster, more agile and more accurate than paper-based systems.