Expect sticker shock. Cost could easily scare you away from document management solutions – take a deep breath and compare the prices to the costs of doing business the same old way. Starting with a limited role in one department can also help reduce costs and prove value before committing to spending tens of thousands of dollars.

Avoid all-in-ones. There’s a trend in IT towards “appliances” – specialized servers that are completely configured by the manufacturer. For more straightforward IT functions such as firewalls or fax servers, appliances can be a fast solution. This approach is too rigid for document management – stick with your standardized hardware solution, and your reseller should be able to make it work.

Don’t worry about storage. Chances are, your storage needs are nothing compared to what some of these vendors see. Two million paper records? Just another day for them. Computer storage space is cheap and easy to add, so don’t get distracted by vendors promoting the huge amount of space they provide.

Test your backup. If the system is being run in your IT department, make sure your staff and the vendor work together to create and test a very specific disaster recovery plan. Just having tape backups is worthless if it turns out that they can’t be read later. With an ASP solution, make sure the process for disaster recovery is documented and available to you.

Think ahead about security. Does the system permit individual and group authentication and page-level security? Can documents be locked? Does the system provide a clear, auditable record of access and changes? Work with your IT administrator to decide what specific security measure you'll need, being sure to consider government regulations, industry standards, and corporate policies.

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Working towards the paperless office: You can drastically reduce the amount of paper documents your business depends on by choosing a document management system.