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On-premise mailrooms are slow, error prone and require too much labor and valuable real estate – not to mention they simply cannot support today’s ‘new world of work.’
Market research firm IDC has projected that spending on technologies and services that enable digital transformation of businesses will hit $1.97 trillion in 2022. One of the best places for an organization to jumpstart its digital transformation is the mailroom — the main point of entry for documents. On-premise mailrooms are slow, error prone and require too much labor and valuable real estate — not to mention they simply cannot support today’s “new world of work.”
According to IDC, companies lose 20% to 30% in revenue every year due to inefficiencies. An outdated, physical mailroom is one of the most inefficient operational siloes for companies today.
At issue? The inordinate number of documents arriving in paper form. Companies — large and small — have business-essential mail streams coming through the U.S. Postal Service in physical form that have to be captured, data extracted and then married with electronic counterparts. Manual mailroom workflows turn this process into a logistical nightmare — even with a dedicated administrative staff responsible for opening, copying, scanning, sending and/or uploading documents to various other systems.
How a company approaches processing and managing information from the mailroom has a direct impact on core business operations in every department. Invoices, contracts, purchase orders, client communications and expense reports are just a few examples of the myriad of business documents received in volume each day.
Related: How to Use Automation (and Avoid the Pitfalls) as an Entrepreneur
Physical mailrooms create numerous problems.
The traditional mail-delivery process begins with a staff member opening the correspondence, logging it and determining who gets it internally. Then, it’s often hand-delivered to the appropriate party, who then reads it and either files it away or scans a copy to share by email or, even worse, makes multiple hard copies to distribute internally.
Companies that rely on these cumbersome methods can quickly find themselves mired in mounting document piles and workflow bottlenecks trying to process all this information manually.
The manual handling of mail creates an environment ripe for human errors to creep in. From internal routing mistakes and inaccurate data entry to scanning exceptions and misfiling, errors can be numerous — and, if uncaught, can often result in negative operational impacts downstream.
The exchange of information today comes in from more sources than ever before — customers, prospects, suppliers and colleagues — across multiple communication channels and in a number of different formats, each requiring its own process for handling.
A digital mailroom can help companies overcome these challenges and begin to transition their operations to include more data-centric workflows that have become a necessity in today’s digital business world.
A digital mailroom combines document capture and management with automated workflow technology to digitize the secure inbound and outbound delivery of mail, resulting in a positive impact across the entire organization. Organizations with little or no previous experience with mailroom automation are often reticent about embarking on what may seem like another daunting IT project. However, there are a number of fundamental things that business leaders should understand about implementing a digital mailroom and benefits they should come to expect.
Related: How to Take Marie Kondo’s Approach for Workflows and Processes
While interest in digital mailrooms has certainly been accelerated by the new world of work, misperceptions exist that might hinder companies from taking action. Below are four debunked digital mailroom myths:
Organizations can realize a number of benefits across the enterprise from automating their mail workflows.
Boosted productivity
Having the ability to process both inbound and outbound mail in a matter of seconds, then quickly upload the information to other corporate systems enhances productivity immensely.
More accountability
The ability to attach “a timer” to every piece of mail that comes in helps improve accountability across the organization. In addition to knowing when a mail piece is received, opened and placed in someone’s queue to be processed, organizations can gain insight into how long it took someone to process his or her mail — this week, this month, this year— compared to others in the office.
Deeper visibility
Digital mailroom solutions have the ability to provide extra visibility into what’s going on with both inbound and outbound mail through a number of customizable dashboards and reports. Organizations can gain real-time insight into how many pieces of mail are being processed, the different document types, the number of pages and where a document may be in a workflow.
Reinforced compliance
This type of automation creates a detailed audit trail for every single piece of inbound mail. All inbound mail, whether email, fax, U.S. Postal Service or overnight mail comes into a common-capture platform. Mail is processed in the same manner, in an encrypted format, every single time. The encrypted documents go through the workflow and are uploaded to corporate systems — creating a new level of security as all information is processed, housed and shared in a compliant fashion (for example, meeting PCI certifications, SOC 2 certifications, etc.).
Related: 4 Transformational Questions Your Business Should Ask
Gartner, Inc., expects technology initiatives around digitization to be top-of-mind strategies for executive leadership, with a keen focus on solutions that improve a company’s infrastructure to accommodate the new world of work — and to ensure information is as mobile as its workforce.
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Legal departments will grow as your company grows and your business scales. Sometimes business upscale can happen rapidly, and it is always beneficial to be prepared. This helps you stay organized and on track when you are scaling different departments, including the legal department. To properly scale your legal department, there are a few steps to take into consideration.
When it is time to scale your legal department, it is crucial to see what the current processes are like, and which tools can better impact these internal processes. This overall understanding will help you decide what changes you need to make to properly scale the department. To begin with, here are some basic tools you can evaluate:
Once you have identified the impact of each tool on your internal legal process, it is crucial to collaborate with stakeholders across your tech stack. This helps you understand their processes and what tools they use. As a first step, you will need to reach out to every department in your company that you collaborate with as a legal team to understand the kind of tools, software, and tech they use. Understanding their processes and tools will help you build your company's tech stack to be more cohesive and collaborative.
Once you have a full overview of the tech stack of the company's operations, it is time to consider the value of each potential tool and run a cost-benefit analysis. Investing in the right tech stack when you are scaling your business can build a good foundation for your company's future. A common error most companies make during scaling is building their software and tech internally due to budget constraints or other reasons.
If you build your tools internally, you will eventually be playing catch-up and fall behind. Instead, investing in good software and building a strong tech stack allows you to grow with the evolving world of technology. Legal technology is becoming more important every day and choosing the right legal tech tools is critical to your business growth.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
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5 alternatives to Office 365 that you’ve never considered
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If you’re looking for an alternative office suite, there are several choices to be found. Jack Wallen offers his five favorites that aren’t Office 365 or Google Workspace.
When you think of office suites, most likely two platforms come to mind: Office 365 and Google Workspaces. Both of those offerings offer outstanding features, stability, a user-friendly interface, and (at least with Google) free tools for users.
SEE: Feature comparison: Time tracking software and systems (TechRepublic Premium)
But those aren’t the only options; in fact, there are a number of office suites that are ready to serve you well. Some of those tools are cloud-based and some are installed locally, but all of them can get the job done. And you might be surprised to find out that most of them can stand toe-to-toe with the de facto standards.
Let’s take a look at five alternative office suites that aren’t built by either Microsoft or Google.
Zoho has been around for quite some time, slowly building a vast repository of tools to offer business users and individuals alike. The number of tools offered by Zoho is staggering, which might be a bit overwhelming to some. Just navigating around the Zoho ecosystem can get a bit confusing.
If you’ve used either Google Workspace or Office 365, Zoho Workplace will be surprisingly familiar. The default app displayed on the workplace.zoho.com URL is mail, but from the menu button (upper right corner) you can access links for Meeting, Writer, Sheet, Show, Notebook, Cliq, Connect, Bookings and more. In fact, a bit of exploration will reveal Zoho has an app for just about everything. Pricing for Zoho Workplace includes the Standard account at $3/month/user for 30GB mail storage (per user) and 10GB WorkDrive storage (per user) and the Profesional account at $6/month/user for 100GB mail and 100GB WorkDrive storage.
Nextcloud is my on-premise cloud platform of choice. Not only is it open source, but it’s also incredibly flexible, reliable and secure. Nextcloud also includes integration with a full-blown office suite that can easily serve your needs. You’ll find tools for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, file management and sharing, video and audio chat, and more. Even better, if there’s not a tool installed by default, you can head over to the Nextcloud App Store and install even more tools to help you get your jobs done.
What I like most about Nextcloud (besides everything already mentioned here), is that I can install it locally on my own server so data is never shared outside my LAN. So, if the idea of storing your important documents on a third-party server rubs you the wrong way, Nextcloud is a fantastic option. Nextcloud is free to download and use.
The ONLYOFFICE Document Server can be a bit tricky to get up and running (thanks to Docker, that’s considerably easier), but the effort is worth it. Once up and running, you’ll find a well-designed user-interface that gives you access to tools for documents, spreadsheets, project management, CRM, mail, contacts and more. ONLYOFFICE also allows you to share and collaborate with your documents and offers 100% compatibility with docx, xlsx and pptx. And, like Nextcloud, you’ll be storing all of your documents on your own server, so you can retain control over who sees what.
One thing to keep in mind, however, the best route to deploying the ONLYOFFICE Document Server is via Docker, so you’ll need to have a bit of knowledge with that container runtime engine to get this platform up and running. The learning curve might well be worth it. Deploying ONLYOFFICE via Docker is free.

Apple’s iCloud allows users to access the iWork suite of tools, which includes Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Photos, iCloud Drive, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, Reminders and more. If you’ve never experienced the power of Pages, you’re missing out. This outstanding word processor bests a lot of the competition in features and UI, even though it does have a slightly higher learning curve. But once you get beyond that curve, you’ll find Pages to be an absolutely rock-solid tool for documents.
Even better, Pages offers the ability to import/export to the docx format, so you won’t miss out on collaborating with your colleagues who use Office 365. Each of the other tools found on iCloud also stands up to the competition. The only caveat is that the iCloud layout could use a bit of work. Instead of having one interface that integrates all of the tools, you have to open each tool individually from the icloud.com site (as though you were working on a mobile device). Despite that one downfall, iCloud is very much a viable option and is free to use for anyone who’s purchased an Apple laptop or desktop.

This is the only option on the list that isn’t based in the cloud. Softmaker Office is a traditional office suite that offers some of the best MS document format compatibility. Available for Linux, macOS and Windows, Softmaker Office includes documents, spreadsheets, presentations and offers PDF creation (including archival PDFs), version management, research tools, customizable UI, quick access toolbar, dark mode, touchscreen mode, tabbed windows, templates, and much more.
Softmaker Office is not open-source and does have an associated price. You can either subscribe to SoftMaker Office NX Universal for $4.99/month or NX Home for $29.99/month or purchase SoftMaker Office 2021 for $79.95.
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5 alternatives to Office 365 that you’ve never considered
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Filevine, a startup offering a software-as-a-service product for legal case management, today announced that it closed a $108 million series D round led by StepStone Group with participation from Golub Capital and existing investors Signal Peak Ventures and Meritech Capital.
CEO Ryan Anderson said that the proceeds will be put toward pursuing new market opportunities, specifically in the nonprofit, insurance, and public sectors, and “further evolv[ing] the [Filevine platform] to meet changing legal demands.”
The large tranche is a sign of the strength of the legal tech market, whose growth accelerated as the pandemic led to record demand for legal services and a shortage of qualified talent. For example, according to a report published by the American Bar Association, nearly 10% of lawyers now use some form of AI-based legal tech. In 2021, Gartner predicted that legal tech budgets would increase threefold through 2025 “as general counsel face unprecedented pressure both in terms of managing legal workload and driving efficiency in their departments.”
But some corners of the legal field remain reluctant to adopt new technologies due to strict standards for confidentiality and security and a lack of domain expertise. This frustrated Anderson, a former litigator, whose own struggles with legal tech tools led him to co-found Filevine in 2014 alongside Jim Blake and Nathan Morris.
“The solutions on the market were point solutions focused mostly on defined processes. Nothing captured the actual work of the lawyer, which is, at its core, communication and the exchange of information with many stakeholders,” Anderson told TechCrunch via email. “[I] built Filevine alongside co-founders to fill this void in the enterprise
software-as-a-service market.”
Filevine provides software designed to help with specific legal workflows, including document management, billing and timekeeping, e-signatures, and lead management. Attorneys can use the platform to assign tasks, upload files or images, and communicate with clients from a centralized workspace.
“Traditionally, legal work is perceived as jobs to be done. Many of the players in legal tech have been focused on how to scale lawyers, how to scale corporate counsel teams, and so on. Filevine looks at legal work differently — we look at jobs to be done and the intersection points of legal work consumption,” Anderson said. “These intersection points are where the real breakdowns occur with errors, bottlenecks, back and forth, delays. Filevine is focused on scaling legal professionals’ day-to-day and scaling the consumption of legal work that organizations depend on.”
A newly introduced Filevine feature, two-way folder share, allows stakeholders like outside counsel to collaborate on documents without having to rely on third-party services. Outside users have the ability to upload or add additional documents and files into a shared folder, and every shared document or folder link is password-protected.
Filevine also earlier this year released a document verification service through its Vinesign e-signature subsidiary that leverages blockchain technology to confirm details about documents and their signatures. In a separate expansion, Filevine acquired Outlaw, a contract lifecycle management (CLM) startup, for an undisclosed amount, folding the startup’s tools for drafting, reviewing, and approving legal documents into the broader Filevine platform.

Filevine’s report builder tool. Image Credits: Filevine

Filevine’s report builder tool. Image Credits: Filevine
Anderson sees Filevine’s CLM features by way of Outlaw as a key differentiator, noting that Outlaw’s annual recurring revenue (ARR) has grown 400% since the acquisition.
“A contract has a lifecycle that can form as early as a negotiation, all the way through to breach or complete fulfillment. Before, after, and during the life of a contract, so many different things can happen: The contract could be breached, amended, litigated, renegotiated,” Anderson said. “Shifting away from documents and contracts as ‘snapshots in time’ allows legal teams to manage their critical work with the most up-to-date context in every matter.”
In terms of funding, 2021 was a record year for legal tech. Roughly $1.4 billion was invested by venture firms in the first half of the year, or more than in the entirety of 2021. Companies including practice management software developer Clio, CLM suite IronClad, and digital contract management firm Icertis, which achieved unicorn status. (Anderson also sees Juro, NetDocuments, and Needles as competitors.)
Filevine — whose total raised stands at $155 million — has benefited from the boom, notching 198% growth in ARR over the past two years. Anderson expects ARR to reach $100 million next year as the company expands its workforce from 473 employees to 530. Current customers include 2,900 corporate and public organizations with 42,000 users combined, Anderson said, including the Utah County Public Defenders Association.
“Over the past few years, the battle for leadership in the legal enterprise market has been fierce. The venture community is starting to realize what the market was already signaling: There is an increasing need for centralized legal work management,” Anderson continued. “Filevine aims to tear down the silo between the doing of the legal work and the consumption of the legal work. Filevine’s platform serves not only those processing cases, matter, and documents — but critical stakeholders that interface and depend on this work like sales teams, outside counsel, and operations teams.”
Filevine’s future challenge will be convincing holdouts that the platform is worth their investment. A 2021 LawGeex survey found that nearly half of corporate counsel feel that they don’t have the technology they need to succeed and believe that it’s due to their company’s unwillingness to invest in such technology or see the return on investment for it.
Among other hurdles, Filevine will have to convince skeptical organizations that the inner workings of its platform aren’t impenetrable. A poll from Wolters Kluwer found that while half of the lawyers surveyed expect to see a transformational change involving AI, big data, and analytics, only one out of four claims that they understand these technologies. Anderson touts the simplicity of Filevine, but time will tell whether the software is streamlined enough to win over legacy firms with established processes.

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Home » Business » Best Bookkeeping Software
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Small business finances can oftentimes be tricky to track and keep in a detailed record, though this is a highly important task for any entrepreneur or a business owner. In today’s modern age, many are turning to small business accounting software as a solution to help with their financial reporting. 
Let’s begin by discussing what bookkeeping software is. Essentially, it’s accounting software for small business owners who are taking care of bookkeeping tasks on their own and tracking the financials of their business. 
As a small business owner, you may wonder if you need to use accounting software in the first place. The truth is, using bookkeeping software can help you immensely when it comes time for tax season. Throughout the year, the better records and details you keep about the financial transactions of your business, the easier it will be to determine what your tax liabilities are.

Plus, it can help you stay on budget, make sure you’re paying all recurring invoices properly, reconcile bank accounts with your records, and more. All in all, whether you use accounting software or not, bookkeeping is an important part of running a business, so using most accounting software will be able to help you out. 

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Let’s take a look at the most comprehensive accounting software providers on the market today. While the following list of the best accounting software will range in pricing and capabilities, they are all a good match for businesses in different scenarios. 
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QuickBooks is not the cheapest option available, though it is considered the best small business accounting software year after year. Customers like it for its depth of capabilities and flexible nature to meet their specific needs. 
All in all, QuickBooks is the best overall accounting software that has years of experience providing online bookkeeping services to small businesses. It has a great user experience and is capable of handling even the most complex accounting matters. QuickBooks is available in a number of different packages, making it a flexible choice and a good match for nearly any business. Plus, they have a great mobile version of their site, much better than some of the other online accounting software options on the market. In addition, there are add-on accounting features that you can add, meaning the platform can be customized to best fit your business. 
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Xero is great for reconciling any bank account, project management, and managing sales volume. They have made recent improvements to their platform for a better setup and onboarding. It continues to be a great choice for small businesses. 
They have a great support team for customers online, though they don’t offer real-time chat or phone support. Their increased security measures and other ongoing improvements are favored by customers. Plus, they have powerful reporting capabilities and can be easily integrated with other third-party apps. So for the smaller companies that rely on a lot of business intelligence and financial data, Xero is a great choice with its advanced features. 
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FreshBooks is great for double entry accounting and offers a simple-to-use interface that is a good choice for freelancers and sole proprietors. 
FreshBooks has a great, intuitive interface that is easy to use and packed full of features that a very small business owners or freelancers may need. The platform has powerful collaboration tools, inventory management, and it’s great for tracking time. Plus, the mobile platform has wonderful capabilities and automatically tracks mileage. So even though it’s a great choice for smaller businesses, their payroll and other features mean it can support larger businesses with ease as well. 
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Great for a very small business, Wave is a simple accounting solution for enterprises with very few employees and invoicing needs.  
Wave’s invoice creation and tracking tools are great, though they aren’t highly customizable. The features that the platform offers are of good value given that it’s a free service, though there are some more advanced features that it misses out on that other providers have. So for the businesses looking for accounting solutions for very simple needs like income and expense tracking, Wave is a good option. 
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Melio is a good choice for businesses seeking out an accounts payable or accounts receivable solution to streamline bill payments. It helps small business owners find flexibility with how they pay their bills, either through ACH or credit card, even if the vendor doesn’t support these options. 
Melio is a tool to help business owners streamline their AR and AP processes, and help them to accept online payments. Plus, using Melio, businesses can even receive same-day bank transfers for just a 1% fee, though their service can only be synced with QuickBooks. All of Melio’s services are completely free, except for the credit card fees, international transfer fees, and expedited check delivery. In addition, Melio seamlessly sends out 1099s to contractors ahead of tax season and is a great option for any business dealing with international parties. 
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Odoo is a great choice for someone running a small business and provides enough flexibility for growing businesses to scale up. 
Odoo can be highly customized and easily integrated with a number of other online business solutions, making it a great choice for online businesses today. The pricing is very reasonable compared to other options on this list, providing great value for the prices customers pay. On their platform, customers can track income, track inventory, view financial reports, create invoices, and more. All in all, it’s a great tool to help businesses automate their accounting services and reconciliations within their website or their mobile app. 
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Zoho Books is a great service that is highly affordable and accessible for all businesses. They have good support options and document storage and are overall a solid service. 
They recently integrated payroll capabilities for all states, so Zoho Books is quickly becoming a top provider for both small and large businesses. Overall, Zoho has a wide range of other business support services like a customer relationship management platform, email, and more, with their accounting software for small businesses just one of them. With this, the accounting service can be integrated with its other apps. So, the flexibility and depth of their services make them a top choice and a feature-rich accounting platform. 
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GoDaddy Bookkeeping is another great service offered by GoDaddy, known for its web domain registrar platform. Their accounting software is best for online sellers who want to streamline their accounting process, track expenses, and more. 
They have a great bookkeeping platform that’s simple to use and intuitive for users without a deep understanding of accounting. Their service is mostly used among sellers on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and GoDaddy’s online store platform. Their platform gets rid of data entry tasks and purchase invoice management. Plus, it integrates with business bank accounts and e-commerce sites to provide real-time reports on financials and has affordable pricing tiers. 
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ZarMoney is one of the best small business accounting software options available. It has a wide range of capabilities, and customers like how they infuse humor into the platform.  
They have a full bookkeeping system and accounting service, in addition to comprehensive invoicing and billing, project management, expense management, and more. They make it easy for businesses to accept payments online, send notifications for payment reminders, and other helpful notification features to keep businesses and their customers on track with payments. Their platform ranges in pricing as well based on the functionality needed, so it can be a great fit for businesses at any stage. 
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Oracle Netsuite is a comprehensive solution for accounting software, with additional features and capabilities provided throughout the rest of the platform. This is best for medium-sized businesses with advanced needs and expense tracking, plus it is more expensive than other affordable accounting software options on this list. 
Using an ERP like Oracle Netsuite gives business owners an all-in-one financial management platform. So, this may be overly robust for what some businesses need, though it can be a good solution for those who want these details all in one place. This platform lets business owners automate many crucial accounting tasks like accounts receivable or accounts payable, which can make their financial management processes more efficient and convenient. 
When choosing the best accounting software for small businesses, there are some elements you will need to consider in order to find the right accounting solution for you. 
Above all, when you’re looking for the best accounting software, you need to consider the general functionality of the platform you’re reviewing. Take a look and see if it has all the necessities you need, at a reasonable price. 
Consider whether it has capabilities for invoice tracking and management, integration with other third-party applications, payroll functionalities, unlimited invoices, tracking payroll taxes, and any other tools that are generally required by all businesses like to track expenses. 
Once you’ve determined that an accounting platform has great general functionality, you may consider additional criteria based on the industry your business operates in. While some businesses only sell goods online and need a streamlined way to track their inventory, other businesses might only provide online services, in which case this would not be a priority of theirs.

Plus, depending on where your customer base is located, you will want to pay attention to whether the software you’ve selected will support multiple currencies and allow you to accept payments from clients around the world. 
Lastly, you want to seek out an accounting platform that will be able to scale and grow with your business. Just because you only have a few employees now and are hitting a certain sales volume doesn’t mean it will always be that way.

So, look for an accounting platform that can grow with you and support further expansion. If invoicing capabilities are limited, or the platform can only support up to five users, you may want to seek out a better option that will still support your business when it’s reached a new level. Thus, while the best free accounting software may seem like a great option at the start, if it’s only a basic platform with limited capabilities, you may want to pay a smaller fee than other providers charge.  
All in all, online accounting services are highly valuable for business owners and can help with overall financial management and automate time-consuming tasks that fall on the owner’s plate. 
All of the software options listed above will be a great fit for a small business, and generally speaking, most will work. The problem that a small business owner may face is if they’re paying for advanced software, they may be paying for capabilities and functionalities they don’t even use. So, they should consider their priorities and search for a platform that is reasonably priced and fits their needs. 
The online accounting service that is easiest to use is Wave. It is the simplest option on this list, giving it a straightforward interface that anyone can use.
While many of these platforms offer pre-configured pricing structures, some may offer more custom pricing if you have specific business requirements, or based on your size. 

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SS&C Blue Prism combines robotic process automation (RPA), business process management (BPM), AI and No-code offerings to deliver a comprehensive intelligent automation suite
WINDSOR, Conn., Oct. 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — SS&C Technologies Holdings, Inc. (Nasdaq: SSNC) today announced at its SS&C Deliver Conference the rollout of its intelligent automation portfolio under the SS&C Blue Prism brand. SS&C Blue Prism combines RPA, BPM and low and no-code capabilities to provide a comprehensive menu of intelligent automation (IA) services.
“SS&C Blue Prism’s comprehensive suite of products and second-to-none support options are a critical part of our business processes,” said Giovanni Gentile, Managing Director, Bionics, at State Street Bank. “By utilizing its intelligent automation platform and extensive industry expertise, we’re able to deliver high quality and innovative services.”
Supported by technologies such as Process Intelligence, AI/ML, and Intelligent Document Processing, the portfolio enables businesses to unify the workforce, transform customer, employee and user journeys and scale enterprise-wide.
 SS&C Blue Prism’s recent integrations and developments include:
In addition, SS&C Blue Prism will release several key product enhancements and delivery options in the coming months, with more information being released to customers attending the SS&C Deliver conference.  
“We are proud of the progress we’ve made in the seven months since SS&C closed on the Blue Prism acquisition, delivering a comprehensive IA solution with BPM, RPA, no code and AI capabilities,” said Bill Stone, Chairman and CEO, SS&C Technologies. “The flexibility of our model ensures we can tailor versatile, scalable solutions to our client’s businesses. Our deep expertise and industry experience ensures we can support our clients’ accelerated business growth.”
More than 2,800 customers worldwide run their operations on SS&C Blue Prism, digitizing operations across financial services, insurance, health and pharma, banking, and more. Learn more about SS&C Blue Prism here.
SS&C is a global provider of services and software for the financial services and healthcare industries. Founded in 1986, SS&C is headquartered in Windsor, Connecticut, and has offices around the world. Some 20,000 financial services and healthcare organizations, from the world’s largest companies to small and mid-market firms, rely on SS&C for expertise, scale and technology.
SOURCE: SS&C
Additional information about SS&C (Nasdaq: SSNC) is available at www.ssctech.com.
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Today, more quality managers are using tablets and mobile devices to create, track, and review documents. Source: Ideagen
Keeping track of documents is essential for maintaining an audit-ready quality management system (QMS). Document control software has existed in some form since the late 1980s, but has evolved over the past decade to mesh with higher-tech, business-boosting trends like automation and real-time data exchange on smart factory floors.
For more insight into modern document control, Quality asked Dave Hunter, director of product management and user experience at MasterControl, and Jennifer Sillars, product marketing manager at Ideagen, to share their top trends and tips that manufacturers should know. 
According to both Sillars and Hunter, the most ntable trend is Cloud-based collaboration. The use of tablets and smartphones to automate the entire lifecycle of documents in a virtual collaboration workspace is growing, too, and all of this is bringing new challenges to the fore.  
“You think of Google Docs, real-time collaboration, and the challenge there is to marry that to a regulated space—making sure the content there is approved and distributed appropriately,” Hunter says. “That means creating a Google Docs-like experience in the creation and the revision process; and then downstream of that, making sure the documents are controlled and released appropriately to the right people, and making sure those people are trained to the new revisions.”
Sillars characterizes 2017 as “the year of collaboration by any means necessary.” Social collaboration platforms widened the sphere of influence in document review, she says, giving more people a voice. But there was a catch: As more voices were allowed front and center in the social stream promoted by various collaboration platforms, frustrations grew—especially for manufacturing companies. 
“Chat only gets you so far towards a decision point,” Sillars explains. “Buyers need document-centric collaboration because they strive for excellence in business-critical documents.”
Thus, Sillars contends that 2018 will be “the year of document-centric collaboration.” As proof, she points to three concurrent trends: 
Collaboration fatigue: The abundance of collaboration tools in the market has created a collaboration paradox: the more tools available to us, the more fragmented our interaction becomes. Users are tired of endlessly shouting into the abyss and will retreat from tools that aren’t focused. 
The document management module within Ideagen’s Q-Pulse software allows the user to manage documentation, regulatory or otherwise, from creation right through to approval, publication, and distribution. Source: Ideagen
SaaS Supremacy: Geographical barriers and time zone differences are common barriers to document-centric collaboration. Whether due to the rise of working from home or the reality that decision makers are often on the road, buyers are looking for software as a service (SaaS) solutions to overcome these barriers. The majority of new spend in 2018 will be on SaaS solutions.
Collaboration beyond the Firewall: While 2017 saw great strides made in internal collaboration, document-centric collaboration with third parties failed to develop beyond traditional email chains. Now we will see efforts made to improve collaboration with suppliers, customers, partners, and industry groups using the same tools they are using internally. In response, vendors focus more on access control and security.
The old standby with keeping documents up to date is a review policy. What’s changed with modern document control software is being able to distribute some of that workload, Hunter says, so that the person reviewing a particular document is the content expert. 
“You want to make sure that the tool is flexible enough to be sending out the right alerts to the right people, relative to the right document, because one person getting inundated with documents doesn’t work very well,” Hunter says. “Having a robust review process is key in quality, but another piece to that is being able to track changes to the next revision easily, and having software that can facilitate that.”
Sillars says that the document creation phase also has witnessed an evolution in recent years, particularly in the area of co-authoring and redaction. Ideagen’s PleaseReview product, for example, allows many complex pieces of documentation to be reviewed by multiple stakeholders at the same time—tying in with the top trend of collaboration.
Additionally, manufacturers are being asked to produce more regulated documents than ever before, Sillars says, but without sacrificing time and labor that could be funneled elsewhere. For instance, a first article inspection process can be time-consuming and labor-intensive when being completed manually. “If an airline engine has 30,000 parts, then manufacturers are required to sign off every single measurement on a part and ensure that they are correct,” Sillars says. “That’s a huge task, and also time spent doing paperwork and away from actual production of a product.” 
By automating the process with document control software, Sillars says manufacturers “can improve the productivity, efficiency, and reliability of their quality inspection work.” At the same time, a module dedicated to a specific process—like Ideagen’s Q-Pulse FAIR solution for first article inspections—can help manufacturers validate that a product has been manufactured to the correct specification. 
A large number of manufacturing companies still rely on “read and understand” training with their documents, Hunter says, as in: “Here’s the new revision, mark that you’ve read and understood it.” 
 “I think that’s a constant challenge for quality folks,” Hunter continues. “You write the procedures and send them out, but are people reading them and actually using them? And how do you really know that they’ve read it, without testing the competency?” 
MasterControl’s software offers a concise quiz at the end of each document to verify that the user has read and understood it, “which helps with adoption and the understanding of the procedure,” Hunter says.  
Another important aspect of document control for manufacturers is the distribution of controlled copies to manufacturing lines, suppliers, and other locations. MasterControl streamlines this process by allowing users to create customizable watermarks, sequential numbers, and location tracking. The software also tracks new revisions with automatic histories—including reasons for every change, when it was approved, who approved it, and the approver’s signature—and cuts off access to the previous version, thus preventing the accidental use of obsolete or unapproved documents.  
“The tracking of controlled copies is still an issue for some customers, though it’s less of a problem now that you have tablets on the manufacturing floor,” Hunter says. “We recommend being able to track those controlled copies electronically, and to have all of your suppliers in that same system.” 
A diagram of MasterControl’s document control and change control process. Source: MasterControl
Be open to change in the first place.
Sillars: The first piece of advice we provide clients rolling out our software for document management is to think of it not just as a tick-the-box exercise but as a process which is going to be absolutely critical for their organization—which it is. Once you standardize and automate the document control process, the burden is being taken from you and your quality team. This lays a foundation for regulatory compliance and develops a framework for operational excellence.
An organizational shift is needed from managing documents as a difficult exercise and bureaucratic necessity to managing documents in order to strengthen the foundation of your business, and this is where a lot of organizations fall down. It is a culture change, from simply ticking a box to making document control work for you across the business.
Keep it simple.
Hunter: One caution from a best practices standpoint is that simpler is generally better. Usually we encourage clients to simplify their processes before they implement the system, because it’s a good opportunity to streamline. You don’t necessarily need 50 different approvals. Who really is approving it?
Focus on productivity.
Sillars: The biggest thing I see within the manufacturing industry today is a reluctance to accept technology and software that will reduce time wasted and enhance productivity. There are still a lot of manufacturers that aren’t investing in technology in regard to quality in general, but specifically in document management and internal document collaboration. They are creating documentation manually; and although they might have a system for distributing, what is the point in distributing something if it’s not a great document or has mistakes throughout it?
Ensure that metrics are clearly defined. 
Hunter: Be careful with metrics: You will get what you’re measuring. If the goal in measuring a document approval process is a shorter cycle time, you may get it, but is that really what you want? People may take shortcuts along the way that aren’t desirable to get that cycle time down.
A lot of times, you’ll want to pair metrics together with other metrics. For example, if you have a shorter cycle time metric, you might want to have a quality metric along with it to balance it out. Overall, you want to be careful with what you define as success and how you measure it, and analytics—being able to pull that data out, and having the flexibility to track and measure trends—is a key part of that. Q

Leah Pickett is a former editor of Quality Magazine.

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