When we think of an accounting office, many things may come to mind. The two most common are: “knowing the numbers” and “killing trees.” The first ought to be a given, after all that the whole point. The second is not all the accountants’ fault; we all want to know how the calculations came about – proof, CYA, backup…for everything! That requires a lot of paper, as copies of every document and the transactional activity of the actual accounting. At least we’ve moved away from paper ledgers…the first step in saving all those trees!
In more recent times we have accounting systems, which have tried to keep up with the latest technology, including electronic documents. In the last 10 years, the Paperless Office module has been a staple in Sage 100, while Acumatica was written with this system-wide functionality from the get-go.
Though paperless offices are accessed in various ways depending on the system, there is a constant – system security controls who can obtain documents. In the Sage 100 module, users can open, email, and/or print the electronic documents by accessing the list views, even filtering those lists, to easily identify the targeted item(s). These views are available in the inquiry screens for each module throughout the system, such as the Customer record, Employee record, and General Ledger Account Transactions. Acumatica offers the related documents directly on the screen, as well, while reviewing the transactional activity or viewing master records.
In addition to the multitude of system generated transactional activity documents, aka journals and registers, all those accompaniment documents can be stored via paperless office for super quick access. Think of vendor bills, bank statements, customer price schedules, office moving notices, vendor price contracts, etc. Any paper provided that may be needed just for historical purposes or, more importantly, future reference, can be made readily available at the click of a button. No more digging through files boxes from years ago.
Now, as we get more acclimated to electronic documents, so are our customers and vendors. From time to time we may receive an email with a pdf attachment for an order, a quote request, or even a payment notification. These electronic documents also need to be filed for historic or future reference, and are even easily stored in that paper because it’s a simple click, click to save it in the paperless office.
With all of those documents in the system at our fingertips, just think of the joy you’ll experience when you give your auditor access to your system to allow them to print any and all documents needed, ‘til their heart’s content. And, the next time you have a stack of papers to file on your desk, wishing for filing fairing to drop-by any-ol’-time after you leave, imagine being able to put that stack in the shred bin, because you’ve already saved them in the system!
