Reducing Inter-Office Documents and Reports

As a former business consultant, I know that many office workers find themselves bogged under loads of inter-office documents and reports on a daily basis. One of the tasks that I was often called on to perform was to help businesses figure out a way to reduce the amount of inter-office documents and reports. These are some simple tips to follow to reduce the number of documents and reports that you business needs.

Know Why to Reduce

The main reasons for reducing the number of documents and reports in your business is to save time, and ultimately save money. During my career as a consultant, I saw countless hours wasted typing up documents and reports that were not needed. Remember that time is money, and wasted time is wasted money. The efficiency of your staff is more important than the number of file drawers that you have filled up in your basement.

Redundancy

The first thing that you need to look for is redundancy. If you have the exact report that needs to be typed up by multiple people, it needs to be reduced. I once worked with a business that had three people fill out the same report each day. The reports were different each day, but all three people would always be typing up the same report as the other two workers. I had the owner defer the report to a single person instead of three.

I have seen dozens of offices that have documents that need to be filled out that only have a few lines that are different on each form. If you find this, consolidate the forms. There is no reason why the same information has to be entered in, or typed, multiple times if it can be entered in once and the different information filled in when needed.

Daily vs. Weekly vs. Monthly

If it does not harm the flow of your business, try to move as much documentation and reporting to a weekly or monthly basis as possible. One client of mine was surprised to find out that he was the only person at his business that looked at daily reports. When I brought up this point to him, I was able to show how there was no difference in his type of business between seeing daily reports instead of monthly reports other than the fact that it added more work to his staff.

Can a Computer Do It?

This question often confuses many business owners that I have worked with over the years. When I suggest having a computer fill out as many documents and reports as possible, I am not suggesting that computers should replace your staff. If you enter information into a program like Excel, see if there are template forms or documents that match what your company uses. If the program that you are using can automatically pull facts and figures and place them in a needed report, have the program do it. This will save your worker's time, and may even allow you to store the information without having to print it on a daily basis.

If you have the opportunity to reduce the number of inter-office documents and reports in your business, you should take it. Go over each document and report with the eye of someone who wants to save your workers from as much unneeded work as possible. You might be surprised with what that eyes sees that you never did.

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