Nine Everyday Processes That Aren’t Paperless Yet, But Should Be

Many people believe that a paperless office is a dream that will never come true. And it’s true that, in this age of electronics and electronic documents, there are still way too many important aspects of life that must be recorded on paper, often with actual physical signatures.

For the world to become truly paperless, the focus needs to be on creating born-digital versions of paper documents with important security measures baked in. These born-digital versions include information that can be more easily repurposed into other uses without time-consuming, error-prone copying or re-entering.

Countless benefits are associated with making processes and documents paperless. In this slideshow, Laserfiche takes a look at nine everyday processes that aren’t paperless yet, but should be.

Click through for nine everyday processes that aren’t paperless yet, but would make life a lot easier if they were, as identified by Laserfiche.

While it’s true that some positions do allow you to apply online, often they’re simply electronic versions of paper-based applications that require you to duplicate information from one application to another, sometimes within the same application, even if you’re already attaching a resume. It would make more sense to have a single file available so you only have to look up once who your manager was and exactly what month you left the job in 1993, and have all job applications able to intelligently extract the information required from it.

Not only are these forms long and arcane, they’re often legal-size documents that don’t easily fit into file drawers. In addition, they often require an absurd number of signatures, sometimes in the presence of a notary.

These often require physical signatures, and are often non-electronic, or non-searchable electronic forms, making it difficult to search for offending clauses.

If you fill out your own taxes with tax preparation software, you likely end up with electronic searchable forms you can digitally sign. But far too many tax documents — often including W2s — need to be filled out or signed manually.

The vast majority of information on credit applications is identical between institutions, but the document can’t figure that out and repurpose any of the other credit applications you’ve filled out.

There’s some promise about this with electronic health records, but still, on that initial visit, much of the information comes from multiple forms that you have to fill out manually — sometimes with the same information duplicated across different forms.

Served as executor for an estate lately? Get your printer, scanner and pen ready. And that’s just one example.

While some states do support online voter registration, most do not, meaning that someone who wants to vote has to actually track down a form, fill it out and, in some cases, manually deliver it someplace for it to be recorded. That’s a lot of hoops for people — such as the disabled and the elderly — to jump through to cast their ballots.

Whether it’s a business license that needs to be signed by multiple city departments or a car registration, chances are you need to fill out several of these a year.