Making an office paperless improves its efficiency, it has been claimed.
Scanning documents can help an office reduce its reliance on paper storage and make the overall organisation more efficient.
That is the view of Raz Godelnik, co-founder of the green company Ecolibris.net, who outlined the benefits of a document scanning service.
"Paper is not just about trees and saving trees and saving money – it’s also about becoming more efficient, because all the trouble with paper, from buying paper to printing to sending, is inefficient," he explained.
"So when you move to an electronic format, you usually become more efficient [and] your operations become more secure."
Mr Godelnik said there are a number of different technologies firms can use to make their offices more efficient and reduce the amount of paper they use.
Organisations’ choice of systems will depend on their level of operation and what sort of business they are conducting.
"Usually, they can find all sorts of software – for example for helping to get their operations completely digital," he suggested.
"If it’s about invoices or sending receipts, billing and so on – you can find software that is a good fit for small companies and not as expensive."
The expert also pointed out that technological systems make it easier to manage information and store it electronically.
"Another example is software that arranges the number of pages – many times we have documents where there are empty pages – and you find instead of 50 pages you could print just 30 pages," Mr Godelnik said.
"So this software organises the paper in the best way possible to reduce the paper that you use for it."
Another business expert recently highlighted the advantages of a paperless office, claiming document scanning and storage can save time and money.
Richard Taylor of the Birchman Group said his own company has installed free software solutions to make this transition.