Good document management software can take over much of the work and free the small businessperson to focus on the business. We look at this issue in more detail below.

Managing documents can be a major task for any business that's not a tiny operation. The process begins even before you start the business.

Project reports need to be prepared to evaluate the business proposal as well as to show to various agencies. Applications for business licenses have to be completed and submitted. Bank loans need to be applied for, along with a lot of supporting documents.

Once the business starts, document management becomes a critical issue. Unless properly managed, total chaos can result. You might not be able to bill for the deliveries you have made, or get paid for the bills you managed to get out. Suppliers might start pressuring you for payment just when your cash has run out. Tax inspectors might be breathing down your neck for details of your business transactions.

The resulting problems can invariably affect your business. You'll be fighting fires on various fronts instead of going after sales, locating low-cost sources to arrange deliveries, and doing all the other really important things.

Trying to manage documents by hand is not only obsolete, but also affects your competitiveness. With any volume of documents to handle, manual document management takes an unduly long proportion of your time even if you have a good document management system in place.

Those competitors who have installed a computer and document management software have a great advantage over you. The software makes all the document management tasks fantastically easy and the competitor has far more time for key business activities.

Documents have to be created, retrieved when needed, and stored safely from loss and unauthorized eyes.

Elaborating a little, good document management involves the following key tasks:

Capturing the details at the most convenient points for creating the document

Organizing the documents in a manner that facilitates their retrieval whenever needed and convenient storage

Arranging for proper security against such dangers as loss, theft, and leakage of sensitive business data

Done manually, these are all time (and space) consuming tasks. Done electronically using a computer, all of these tasks become amazingly efficient and speedier.

For example, many business transactions involve accessing the same document by different departments and persons. In a manual system, this would mean passing the document from person to person or making expensive copies of the original. In a computerized system, the document is captured in a central computer and concerned persons can access it from their workstation computers.

For security, the original paper documents (if any) can be stored safely away and access to the electronic equivalent in the computer can be restricted to authorized persons by the use of such devices as permissions and passwords.

Retrieval of the documents also becomes recognizably faster because the document management software can retrieve any document in seconds, using search facilities or meta information. Compare this with going to a filing cabinet, locating the particular folder, finding the needed document in the folder, and bringing it to the workstation.

Document management is an "unavoidable evil" in any business that is more than tiny in size. Done properly, it can achieve better business results. Neglected, it could lead to chaos and endless troubles.

Good document management software attends to this function effectively and saves you an amazing amount of time and cost.