Basic document storage is just one simple benefit included with iQ as standard. Here we look at the true cost of document handling and storage.

Put bluntly - the handling cost of documents at about 6% to 15% of all revenue of a company and, 85% of all archived documents never leave the filing cabinet.

What is Document Management?

Document management includes every action taken with a document within your company, with respect to the creation, distribution and deletion of documents. iQ deals with the creation of some documents such as invoices, quotes and orders and, the storage of any other documents you choose to upload.

Way back in 1997, Gartner forecasted that the amount of time wasted on document management related tasks would continue to rise. At that time, Gartner estimated that knowledge workers were spending about eight hours a week (or 20% of their work time), on document related tasks.

In 2001 Gartner estimated that this time ranged from 20%-30%, and that this would increase to 30% to 40% by 2003. Together with the salary of your administration staff, the amount of money spent on handling your information is growing and a significant hidden cost.

Next to these figures, Gartner investigated other costs related to handling documents, which are related to manual document processing:

• The average document is copied, physically or electronically, 9 to 11 times at a cost of about € 18.
• Documents cost about € 20 to file.
• Retrieving a misfiled document costs about € 120.
• 80% to 95% of enterprise information is located within paper and electronic documents.
• 25% of enterprise documents are misplaced and will never be located.
• 50% of companies store their documents on local hard drives or office servers.

Document mismanagement takes up:

• 40% to 60% of office workers' time
• 20% to 45% of labour costs
• 12% to 15% of corporate revenue

The “Arbeidsgemeinschaft für wirtschaftliche Verwaltung” (AWV) calculated the benefits of using DMS technology within organisations. They came to the following conclusions:

• Savings on time to create and modify documents: 50%-90%
• Increase in productivity: 20%-30%
• Savings on document handling: 20%-40%
• Improvements in cycle time: 20%-40%
• Savings on deskspace: 30%-50%
• Improvement in client satisfaction: 30%-50%

These are just a number of results from researches on document management. However, they give a very clear picture of the benefits and savings in cost when you will be using just a part of an iQ system.

Reports used in this white paper are copyrighted by their authors and therefore not published by iQ.

References:
Gartner Group: www.gartner.com
Cap Ventures: www.capv.com
Arbeidsgemeinschaft für wirtschaftliche Verwaltung: www.awv-net.de