I recently was dealing with a reservation for parking at the airport for a trip and I was offered two options for capturing my confirmation; printing it out or storing electronically on my phone or computer. This is a pretty common occurrence these days in all forms of consumer transactions. "Do you want an emailed receipt' shows up at the cash register 
at Home Depot every time. Other interactions like banking, ticket purchases and airplane boarding passes all offer an electronic option instead of printing out a copy.
Adjusting to this form of electronic interaction is hard for those of us who grew up with paper everything, but as the smart phone has started to take over so many functions it increasingly has become comfortable to accept the non paper handling of many transactions.
How are commercial operations coping with this?
For your business similar changes are underway and have been for many years. Online banking, account reconciliation and even electronic deposit of funds have all become part of any modern office.
Communication through email, online chat services, messaging tools and other electronic means has become dominant and replaced most paper based systems. Many industries have completely eliminated faxing from their operations replacing it with email and scan systems. Easy access to scanning technology on a cost effective platform has helped this transition.
Some industries have even eliminated the need for scanning using online fillable forms to provide the means for information capture and transaction support with both parties being able to store and electronic copy of the document without ever having a paper form.
Organizing document storage is a key to successful electronic transactions
A critical part of any organization becoming solidly comfortable with full electronic transaction processing is the ability to manage and use an organized, easily understood and effective electronic storage capability for all of the documents required.
Unlike paper, electronic documents have no visual cues, no visible presence which can facilitate their retrieval and organization. Electronic documents require a form of organizational paradigm, usually in the form of some sort of searchable index to enable them to be easily found and retrieved. Think of a simple purchase order which usually has a unique number which is referenced in the electronic transaction file (ERP or accounting records) permitting the applicable purchase order electronic copy to be pulled up. Matching the purchase order number with a delivery receipt record and a payment record can complete a full bundle of information which can be retrieved easily if needed.
Building this kind of integrated index function into the storage of all forms of documents is a key to building a successful implementation. It becomes an important part of any document management strategy to integrate storage and retrieval with other components of the business's operating software systems.
For businesses that have fully embraced and electronic world they will have learned how to analyse their workflows to build the integrations for successful operations. For those who have remained primarily in a historical paper based workflow the understanding needed to build a electronic structure will be much more difficult.
One are where the electronic system excels is the potential for new, customized app based structures to be built and deployed. Using design ideas similar to those which underlie the many apps people have learned to use on their smart phones, businesses are able to build (or have built by a third party) special routines which make carrying out routine and repetitive functions more efficient and effective. Doing this in a non electronic system is virtually impossible.
While the need for paper still appears to exist in many businesses the ability to move transactions to electronically enhanced forms lends the potential to permit significant productivity gains. The costs of deploying and building flexible systems can be lessened and users can find their daily actions made easier and more reliable.
Lee K
