Kellaprince Rentals has gone Paperless

This article may be of interest to anyone who has considered converting their business to a paperless operation. Although we operate in the services sector, a clearly viable segment of industry for conversion to paperless, the only exposure we had to paperless operations was through a prominent car rental business at Cape Town International Airport. Internet research was also surprisingly limited in how and what to do to go paperless.

Our motivation to move toward a paperless operation was not only environmental, but also practical due to the problems posed by printing and storage of large volumes of documentation. It was interesting for us to discover that the conversation to paperless systems forced us to relook almost all of our standard operating procedures and to refine and integrate them, particularly those systems relating to checks, balances and the control of the sequence of processes.

Overcoming the mental reluctance to forego the comfort derived from a physical document in your hand was also a serious challenge. This mind-set was only overcome once staff members started to experience the speed ,accuracy and convenience of a paperless business system. The practical implementation of signing on a glass surface and dragging electronic signatures and initials to correctly preprepared spaces required getting used to. This was however very soon replaced by a heightened sense of professionalism and efficiency.

Efficiency has proved to be the ultimate benefit of the conversion. This means efficiency of time and space utilisation. The inefficiency of receiving a document electronically, printing the document for the laborious and time consuming process of obtaining a physical signature thereon, and then scanning the same document back to yourself for electronic storage, as opposed to omitting the whole printing and scanning side of the process, is easy to comprehend. The inefficacy of paying high rentals for business premises and then using many square meters to accommodate filing cabinets is also obvious.

Streamlining processes and using expensive office space for the generation of profits, instead of storing files, is good business practice.

Direct cost saving also became apparent. Modern copier lease contracts involving a charge per copy are made cheaper, and less paper and ink are used.

The overall effect is to save costs and at the same time create additional work time to be used to increase productivity and improve professionalism. The saving of paper and anything else that can be saved or recycled is of course a plus.

The legality of electronic signing of documents is dealt with in a simple piece of Legislation entitled the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002. This Act and the various commentaries on the Act are easily understood by the man in the street.

Yours in paperless future.

Grant Campbell - Kellaprince Residential Director