Anyone running their business Paperless?

[Unknown Member]

Great post Rob….

I remember discussing this with you one Friday night around 10.00pm at night on the phone when I was standing at the Kebab shop….LOL – You mentioned cloud and paperless then and it was something you had just started looking at probably a year ago now!

I would say we now at Group101 are almost paper free probably about 70% paper free although production still like to print order sheets off just to ensure they have everything they need.

With the introduction of Shopvox I would say 50% of all our paper work was eliminated over night and with the new accountancy practice we are using who you are very familiar with they want paperwork stored remotely even expense receipts are being photographed with an app and being uploaded to a secure cloud share area where these guys download and file.

I myself have several bright orange filing cabinets in the office that over the years seem to be opened less and less as the only paperwork being filled here is insurance polices, machines books, and other bits from HMRC but day to day running is all cloud based now and seems to be going heavier that way.

We will soon be introducing a nice big 50" touch screen in our office area which will have our whole production board showing, things can be dragged moved and updated – This will probably see us go 90% paperless once this is in place.

I don’t think we will ever be 100% as some staff still insist on having print outs etc etc.

One thing I love about being cloud based and paperless is that I can be anywhere in the world and still be working – Even my phone line can follow me where ever I go (VOIP network)

[Colin Crabb]

Something I’m ‘attempting’ now!

So far we’ve started using cloud based programmes & Ipad(s).

Looking at a few accounts packages at the mment to see if we can get worksheets onto the Ipads.

All site work is now done with Ipad / Iphones (pictures, notes etc using Notes Plus or Evernotes apps).

[Phill Fenton]

You’re gonna be sorry…… :shake:

One day, when a massive solar flare hits the atmosphere and knocks out all our electrical communications sytems causing our modern day civilisation to collapse into anarchy and chaos… you’ll be wishing you still had that bit of paper where you had scribbled down the recipe for Rabbit stew 😕

[Del Blanchard]

You’re going to make loggers redundant if you keep this up! Use a ream of paper, save a logger!

[David Hammond]

Almost…

We write enquiries on a customer enquiry pad… they don’t happen to get lost as often as a scrap of paper, and remind us to collect all the information.

All quotes & confirmations are emailed, along with invoices thanks to Clarity & Sage.

We’re currently trying to manage Jobs and Production using Trello (stand by another post about Trello, once I know it will do what we expect) rather than conventional T-Card system, mainly because it’s free, web based, and we can enter more information.

We print works orders/Job sheets, as these are much easier to scribble notes on (we’re still timing our Seiko on jobs to make sure clarity is accurate) We use bright yellow paper so they stand out among all the other paper we’ve got kicking about!

If we have printed samples (such as business cards etc), or vinyl colour swatches, we pop those in the job bag and file it away. If there’s no reference material it get shredded.

[Robert Lambie]

quote David Hammond:

We’re currently trying to manage Jobs and Production using Trello (stand by another post about Trello, once I know it will do what we expect) rather than conventional T-Card system, mainly because it’s free, web based, and we can enter more information.

I looked at trello but as much as i found it a very nice easy interface and very dynamic in how it worked. i found it to be overkill for what was actually needed and lacked in some areas too. I tried another very similar software and it was much the same (forget the name now) so i reverted back to my own online Job process system. 😕
That said, its definitely a better way of working to the old paper method.

[Stephen Morriss]

We’re only a small company so it’s easier for us but we’re mainly paper free.
One note on line for keeping track of jobs/deign/ready to manufacture etc
Accounts are via an online package and invoices emailed to most of our clients
Email is an in house mail server using webmail
Files are kept on a server
Phone for notes

Having emails, notes, design files and accounts all available from any computer makes it a lot easier

We tried Evernote but I didn’t get on with it, kept messing up when 2 people were on it at once, the online version of Onenote seems to cope fine.

We do keep a diary for telephone, booking customers in and quick notes + a notebook for site visits though

Steve

[Warren Beard]

I would love to get this thread updated on who else has gone paperless and their experience. We are still very much job cards which holds all our job information and we too are filling up a 4 drawer filing cabinet a year with job cards and only implemented them 3 years ago 😕

We have just had a demo of Clarity and from that it looks to tick all the boxes although at a very hefty price. Many here know me and my company and it’s growth and from being a one man band 5 years ago we are now a 8 strong work force all trying to gather information and keep track of job cards etc.

For me it’s a daily struggle trying to keep on top of quoting and everything else that goes in to running this business not to mention trying to stay on top of costs and profits so Clarity seems a great choice and safer for data storage etc. I hope it will help streamline production and our internal processes and mainly free me up to work on the business rather then in it non stop.

We also use 2 desks for all our job cards so this is valuable space taken up in our production environment not to mention the continuous writing out of everything again and again and manually searching for specs and details for new and repeat orders.

I feel we could go totally paperless and scan and upload any drawings etc we want to keep so interested to hear any further updates and developments oaths thread and get the general discussion flowing again around paperless, cloud and MIS systems.

Cheers

Warren

[David Hammond]

Sent you a PM Warren, if you can find how to read them!

[Vince Francis]

I wish! I seem to have more trees here than in the Amazon! So if you ever wondered what happened to the Amazon I have it!