What is a DMS (Document Management System)? | eFileCabinet
Yes, there are up-front costs, but the term “a lot” does not do the long-term benefits of DMS justice. The benefits of DMS are best understood through an investment lens—one which requires up-front expenses for long-term reward. However, DMS eliminates the gamble associated with investing by virtue of the ROI it guarantees so long as it is implemented properly and utilized fully. An organization (or individual) cannot reasonably plan to profit without allocating capital to the right resources—a paperless work environment being a clear contender for the spot of ‘the right resource.’ Therefore, the up-front costs of buying and using DMS are poor guidelines for whether a small to mid-sized organization should buy in to using the software, particularly when the initial cost is not considered in tandem with the relatively immediate and long-term benefits of using the service.
The up-front cost of the product’s implementation can be summed by adding the price of the solution with the price of the organization’s implementation, which, although harder to quantify, hinges on both the preparedness of the organization implementing the software and the vendor’s ability to provide guidance and assist with implementation—things over which administrators have a high degree of control.
Administrators who have recently decided to buy in to electronic DMS, and who want to know the operating costs associated with implementation, should know how many documents need to be scanned and uploaded, how preexisting workflow processes will be replicated in the system, and how many employees need training for the service. This includes an estimate for how long these tasks will take and other considerations that will be addressed in greater depth in the implementation section of this eBook.
An efficient, small to mid-sized organization with a vendor savvy enough to provide the correct assistance can have DMS fully integrated into a buyer’s organizational process—and have employees of this organization understand its functions, generating a return on investment—within 2 months (if allocating roughly an hour to the implementation process each day). Many top-notch DMS vendors have site installation guidelines and customer support teams with essential certifications as part of the built-in cost for the product implementation, which, bear in mind, always equates to much less than the cost of continuing paper-dependent operations. As outlined earlier, these costs can amount to as much as $864,000 per year.
