If your company is like most, a great deal of paperwork is passed from department supervisor to department supervisor in order to approve an order, a purchase, or even a departmental change. The expected chain of events is that the document is initiated by a departmental coordinator. The document is manually carried or mailed via intracompany mail for review and approval. The company may require reviews and approvals from a large number of departmental managers or supervisors. The paper trail of a hardcopy document is extremely hard to maintain and trace. In fact, there is a high possibility of misplacing the document. The anticipated end result is that the original document eventually receives all the required reviews and approval signatures. The proposal is then finally authorized for execution.

There are numerous factors that could break this workflow process, thus delaying the expected outcome of proper authorization. One obvious problem is that the document gets lost. If there is a deadline associated with the written proposal, there could be high consequences to pay and the company could suffer a setback.

How many supervisors have extra time on their hands? If the document is delivered to a supervisor for approval, it may sit on a desk or in a “to do” pile for an undetermined amount of time. This could delay the entire workflow approval process.

Companies where documents and procedures are contained in an electronic realm avoid most of these workflow problems. The review and approval of traditional paper documents is replaced with electronic document routing. Documents created in PDF format are emailed to the correct reviewers. Electronic approvals, rejections, and comments are applied to the workflow documents. Additionally, if an actual signature is required, the documents may be printed. After final approval, the documents are indexed and filed with the appropriate review notes, comments, signatures, and date stamps into the electronic records management system.

A few of the features available for reviewing and approving PDF documents are:

1. Important text may be highlighted.
2. An audio clip may be incorporated into the document.
3. Reviewed and Approved stamps with names, dates, and times may be applied.
4. An electronic sticky note may be added.
5. Barcode may be applied for automated indexing.
6. Rejections and reasons for rejections may be added.
7. Signatures may be added electronically.

There are many advantages to automating your workflow process. The electronic documents cannot be lost or misplaced. The documents are emailed which may speed up the approval process. The features available for PDF documents simplify document reviews. The electronic documents are filed and stored for future retrieval.

Would you like your company to be able to cut down on the amount of time and effort spent on reviewing and accepting proposals? Do you wish for a better way to organize and manage the company’s documents and easily maintain automated workflow? Investigate solutions to these and other workflow related problems by investing in an electronic records management system with automated workflow capabilities.