Paperless office

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In order to save work, increase efficiency and protect the environment, a paperless office dispenses with paper-based documents and only uses EDP-supported processes (computers).

Overview

The paperless office is made possible by

  1. Storage of all documents in electronic data storage media (hard drives, possibly various removable media, clouds.)
  2. These documents are only transmitted electronically. (File server , email, instant messenger , etc.)
  3. The complete conversion to legally valid electronic signatures and the waiver of handwritten signatures if legal certainty is necessary.
  4. All existing paper documents are scanned in and finally archived with handwritten signatures until the transition is complete.

solutions

There are various simplifications and solutions to promote the changeover:

  • Many software solutions in the field of document management try to support electronic archiving and reduce the number of paper documents in the office - for example by combining mobile devices and tools for digitally taking notes (e.g. with Microsoft OneNote or similar). ) or when processing receipts and receipts for tax returns via apps (e.g. atmin or similar). A simple scan and a clean, server-based directory structure with soft links and a good ( semantic ) file manager (e.g. Dolphin or similar), however, already offers all the required functionality, including metadata marking and structuring / keywording .
  • The electronic signature is a higher quality, legally valid substitute for traditional manual signatures of dubious security.

Obstacles

The changeover has so far been partially hindered by structures that still exist.

  • The devices and solutions required for electronic signatures are not yet generally available everywhere, sometimes cumbersome and restrictive, and most citizens simply lack the knowledge of convenient use. The exclusive use of electronic signatures can therefore not be expected in many situations for technical reasons, or is extremely cumbersome.
  • The general IT competence of the employees is still inadequate in many cases. The IT equivalents of paper-based standard procedures, such as server storage, soft links and semantic markup / metadata, are not infrequently unknown, or operating systems with inadequate support are used.
  • Companies with which they do business can still use paper themselves, which can require cumbersome printing / scanning and having to have manually signed documents ready.

Problems with only partial changeover

  • When using EDP solutions without actually doing without paper, paper consumption can even increase, since the EDP storage makes it much easier to create multiple copies, and thus the inhibition threshold for paper consumption decreases.
  • When paper and IT solutions are used at the same time, constant back and forth synchronization and copying is often necessary.

For these reasons, a changeover should always be carried out as completely as possible and aim to actually abolish the use of paper .