Creating, organizing, and managing documentation is a hassle, but it is a necessary function of every department within an organization. Statista’s digital documentation review shows just how much each business department uses digital documentation tools with sales at 62%, marketing at 57%, finance at 53%, IT at 41%, legal at 39%, operations at 35%, and human resources at 28%. All this paperwork adds up, but luckily, businesses can rely on automated documentation and its benefits to make processes easier.
What is document automation?
One of the reasons why businesses avoid documentation is because they believe that it is a waste of time and resources. This point is valid, especially if businesses are handling their documentation needs manually. However, accurate documentation is essential for almost every business or organization to function successfully and in an organized manner.
To make documentation as fast, easy, and accurate as possible, organizations rely on document automation. “Instead of performing our normal routine task of manually drafting files, document automation engages smart fields in generating electronic documents. For example, when we engage document automation software to create invoices, it simply adds information to already existing templates and disperses it to the designated addresses,” Inkit explains.
The need for automated documentation
“The time you spend searching for the right information is one of the leading causes of inefficiency. An average knowledge worker spends about 2.5 hours a day or 30% of their time searching for information,” ITGlue’s documentation guide claims. In order to streamline this process to save time and effort, organizations invest in automated documentation. With automated documentation, team members are able to record and find necessary information quickly without wasting time.
5 industries that benefit from automated documentation
Although many organizations benefit from automating documentation, there are five industries in particular that have the most to gain from switching to automated documentation processes.
IT
IT teams and MSPs rely on documentation daily to find information about networks and IT assets. Without documentation and information about IT inventories and networks, team members often end up confused and unable to work or collaborate effectively.
Luckily, there are plenty of network inventory documentation tools, along with other systems, and IT documentation templates that organizations use to automate tedious documentation processes. Documents that IT teams often automate include active directory (AD) documents, billing documents, contact forms, and more.
Finance
Organizations within the financial industries deal with valuable and classified documents every day, so it is imperative that their documentation is accurate and complete. Automated documentation not only helps employees manage documentation, but it also ensures that the quality and accuracy of documents is up to standards.
Legal
Legal documents are complex, but with automated documentation and templates, they can save many hours of time and effort. Some examples of long, complicated documents that organizations in the legal industries often automate are NDAs, contracts, purchase agreements, and more.
Healthcare
Healthcare workers record large quantities of patient data, and they also have to keep this data confidential due to HIPPA and other laws. Automated documentation systems not only help keep patient data secure, but also create templates for documents that are used often, such as patient records, test results, consent forms, and more.
Government & public services
Almost all government departments handle classified information at some point in time. Governmental departments have specific standards and confidentiality rules when it comes to documentation. To ensure that workers are able to process and manage documentation quickly while remaining aligned with the standards, governments automate their documentation processes.
6 key benefits of automated documentation
1) Save time & resources
Teamogy states that “On average, an employee spends 5 hours a week searching for documents. From the company’s point of view, this is 20 hours a month, when the employee wastes time and energy that would be better used for more efficient and better work.” With automated documentation, employees no longer need to do as much manual documentation, allowing them to save time and effort.
2) Improve quality
“A well-designed documented system has many benefits, it ensures quality standards are routinely met, minimizes the potential for error, reduces downtime when deviations occur due to being able to quickly access relevant data, and allows for easy monitoring of the processes such that process outputs are analyzed and appropriate adjustments are made,” Real Regulatory explains from a quality management system (QMS) viewpoint. Automated documentation reduces human error to ensure that information is accurate and complete.
3) Simplify collaboration
The benefits of team collaboration in the workplace are numerous; with collaboration, teams improve in many key areas, including problem-solving, adaptability, participation, skill-sharing, goal alignment, and engagement. Automated documentation simplifies the collaboration process, ensuring that everyone is on the same page and has access to necessary information when they need it.
4) Follow compliance standards
Many businesses that manage large amounts of documentation must follow compliance standards, such as MSPs, legal firms, banks, government agencies, and more. Automated documentation helps organizations follow compliance standards and also gathers essential information for future audits. “Maintaining proper records is a critical aspect of any compliance program. Compliance documentation plays a huge role in ensuring compliance and providing evidence to relevant authorities,” ITGlue claims.
5) Boost employee morale
Documentation is tedious, time-consuming, and often frustrating. There are plenty of document generation challenges that employees face, but with automated documentation, organizations can reduce the need for manual intervention, thus boosting employee morale and taking some of the work off their plates.
6) Help decision-making processes
In order to make informed decisions, team members need accurate information. In fact, one of the top tips for making quality business decisions is evaluating information and data. With automated documentation, it’s easy to find, access, and organize the information you need to make the right decisions for your organization or business.
Essential factors to consider before switching to automated documentation
There are plenty of automated documentation tools out there, and choosing the best one for your business is no easy task. Before you make the switch from manual to automated documentation, there are four essential factors you should take into account:
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Pain points
Pain points are issues, problems, and bottlenecks that you have with your current documentation processes that your automated documentation solution will need to solve.
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Security requirements
If you handle confidential or classified documentation, you’ll need an automated documentation tool that is able to meet your security requirements.
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Integration
The automated documentation tool that you choose must be able to integrate with other systems and software solutions you have in place.
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Ease of use
Automated documentation tools should be intuitive and easy for team members to use or manage.
Automate your IT documentation with NinjaOne
With NinjaOne’s IT documentation solution, you can automate your documentation processes, store files securely, standardize documentation across environments, and more all from a single pane of glass. Claim your free trial of NinjaOne to see how automated documentation will transform your IT environment.
