What is a virtual filing cabinet?
A virtual filing cabinet is just like a regular filing cabinet, but for digital documents.
Paper-based or physical filing cabinets have limitations like high storage & maintenance costs and low accessibility. As the name suggests, a virtual filing cabinet is used to store data on computers, which eliminates all the limitations posed by physical filing cabinets.
Let’s say your job is to organize every incoming document into its respective drawer or filing cabinet. Organizing & storing paper documents is tedious & time-consuming, and reduces productivity. Moreover, you need to physically access the filing cabinet to store or access documents.
Now imagine repeating the same process with a virtual filing cabinet. With the additional organizational features provided by virtual filing cabinets, you can easily categorize documents based on their content, which also makes it easier to find the documents when required. Also, virtual filing cabinets can be cloud based which free up office space & make information more accessible.
Here are 6 reasons why you need a virtual filing cabinet
- Better than emails & drives
There are countless reasons why virtual filing cabinets are better than physical filing cabinets. But did you know virtual filing cabinets are also better than other communication & storage apps like emails & google drive?
While writing an email, you need to find & attach the files you want to share and add every recipient manually. If you want to share the file again, you will have to write another email. Whereas, with a virtual filing cabinet you can share any number of files by simply adding them to the system. And the additional organizational features like tags, document linking, etc provided by virtual filing cabinets make it a better choice than most storage tools like google drive.
- Automate repetitive tasks
Most virtual filing cabinets like SOHODOX also provide basic document management features that let you automate day-to-day document processes like document imports & indexing. These features automatically transfer new documents from your drive to the filing cabinet when they are scanned or uploaded to the system. These automated processes don’t just save a lot of manual labour & time, they also reduce the chances of errors. If you need advanced automation such as automation of accounts payable process or any process involving document approval then look at GLOBODOX.
- Never misplace or lose documents
How many times have you lost an important document? P.S. If you say never, you are probably the most organized person around. And if your answer is anything else, you know what losing an important document can mean for your business.
Documents shared on virtual filing cabinets leave a digital trail that can be tracked at every step & protected from accidentally getting edited or deleted.
- Protect documents from thefts & leaks
Security! The one reason why most people run away from digitizing their business. But is information typed on paper documents more secure? The answer: NO. Paper documents require additional secure storage & 24-hour surveillance. And even after that, you cannot control staff or clients from sharing or misusing the information shared on paper documents.
Virtual filing cabinets provide security features like user credentials & private folders that let you protect your documents from thefts & leaks. Some virtual cabinets also provide access control features that let you grant or restrict access to your documents whenever you want.
- Use keywords to find documents
Everyone reading this will agree that finding documents can be a task, especially if the documents have not been organized & stored properly.
Virtual filing cabinets have keyword-based & text-based search features that let you find any document within seconds. Simply enter a few keywords like client name, date or payment status in the search bar and every document matching your search criteria will be displayed in the results. You also have the option of using multi keywords to filter the search results even further.
- Upgrade storage in a single click
What happens to the new documents when your physical filing cabinet’s storage is exhausted? You have to get a new filing cabinet, which adds costs & reduces usable office space.
Virtual filing cabinets are ‘Virtual’, which means they don’t need a physical storage unit. Plus, the storage capacity of virtual filing cabinets can easily be extended by purchasing more storage space on the provider’s server.
