It’s amazing how much paperwork a business, even a small one, can generate within a year. Whether the form this paperwork takes is digital, physical, or a combination, the important question is how to organize it all. Document management systems, or DMS, is the field that deals with this very problem. However, rather than a singular approach to properly converting, sorting, and indexing documents, document management is an umbrella term for many different methods. Which approach is right for your business, and do you need more than one? This article will seek to answer these questions by breaking down the different types of document management and their use cases.

Document Management: A Diverse Field

Document management is a rapidly growing sector of the business landscape. It is estimated that this sector will be worth $24.91 billion by 2032. Most DMS solutions focus on the shift from paper to digital, giving companies a way to organize, index, and store thousands of valuable documents – and keep them safe.

It’s an ongoing process that enhances productivity, reduces costs, and creates a robust way to store and access information.

That said, the unique needs of each business will dictate the specific approach its DMS will take. Some companies prefer to handle the process themselves, while others choose to outsource to a professional service.

While some solutions will use a blend of document management systems, the different approaches can be categorized into a few main types for ease of understanding:

Content Management Systems (CMS)

As the name suggests, this form of document management is ideal for the creation, organization, and overall management of content. CMS solutions provide a stable platform (often in the form of web tools or overarching software) to make it easy for users to create, edit, and organize documents faster and easier. As these platforms and systems are based on an existing template, they’re much cheaper and faster to implement than designing a system from scratch.

With a central CMS in place, it becomes much easier to train staff how to use it. Work can be produced and maintained in a consistent fashion, even from different locations. That makes CMS a solid method for workplace automation, collaboration, and content creation. It’s ideal for a post-pandemic world where employees may be spread across multiple locations.

It’s worth noting that while CMS can be seen as a form of DMS, technically the reverse is not true. That’s because CMS is used for creation as well as organization.

Enterprise Content Management Systems (ECMs)

ECM solutions provide processes and tools to help businesses keep track of vast amounts of information and data. This form of document management meets a business’s practices halfway, taking into account its existing processes, workflows and structures before offering a solution.

Files in all kinds of formats can pile up quickly. ECM solutions offer ways to organize this critical information and make it easily accessible to those that need it. ECM systems overlay on top of existing systems and capture the important data logged through imaging, collaboration, document management, and more.

That makes ECM a flexible DMS method that works well with existing systems, helping them to run more effectively.

Workflow Management Systems

Repetitive tasks are not only the bane of every employee that has to perform them, but also the enemy of productivity. Workflow management removes this burden by automating certain tasks. This has the effect of freeing up staff, reducing errors, and saving everyone time.

A document management service provider will offer software solutions to assist with this task. The specifics of each system will depend on the nature of the business and the number of tasks that require automation. But in all cases, files can be captured with greater consistency and fewer errors. Bottlenecks are eliminated, and workers are freed up to focus on higher priority tasks.

Records Management Systems (RMS)

Properly archiving and organizing mountains of documents and files is vital to ensure that they are accessible to staff and comprehensible to all. Data breaches and malware attacks are grave threats to document security. So, your data should always be properly backed up (ideally off-site) by a third party or dedicated backup system.

RMS solutions provide templates for the proper indexing of documents, ensuring that they’re filed in a consistent manner. A robust software platform of this kind leaves less to chance and minimizes the risk of human error. In some cases, a business already has a filing system set up, and the RMS solution will need to be customized to integrate seamlessly, or vice versa.

A well-organized filing cabinet makes it easy for anyone to find information quickly, and RMS does the same thing in a digital way. In addition, data stored in compliance with regulatory standards (like GDPR, CCPA, and PDPA) will make your data more audit-friendly, and protect you from the stiff fines and legal action that can result from non-compliance.

Document Imaging Systems

Some businesses still have years of documents in a hard copy form. In other cases, part of the business may still deal in paper files while the rest has been fully digitized. Document imaging helps digitize hard copies through scanning and copying.

Moreover, digital imaging systems also enable you to capture and organize paper documents in a streamlined and consistent way that aligns with your existing record-keeping structures. Optical character recognition is crucial in speeding up the process, by identifying keywords and sorting files.

The Right Document Management for You

There are several other types of document management that deal with various aspects of cataloguing and data consistency. For example, quality management systems ensure comprehensive categorization and detailed metadata for every file, while email and HR management systems process a business’s sensitive communications and personal information.

A professional document management service can make all the difference in the ease and effectiveness with which any solution is implemented. If you’re in the Mill Creek area, then Copiers Etcetera is an ideal document management partner. We’ve been serving the Pacific Northwest for well over 30 years, so we have the experience and expertise to offer you the best DMS solution for your business. Contact us today.