Typically, paperless office software consists of a suite of software systems and not a single package. You have to do several things to move towards a paperless office (actually a minimal paper office, because several factors will ensure that paper continues to be used in offices).

We would be able appreciate this fact better if we look at the typical steps that take us towards this minimal paper office. The following are major steps you take to minimize paper in your office:

• You capture data directly into the electronic system instead of on paper. The following are examples of such direct data capture:
• The POS (Point of Sale) terminals you see at retail establishments capture sales transactions details and transmit them direct to the central database.
• Handheld devices similar to mobile phones can accept data entry in the field, such as offshore drilling platforms that are inhospitable for computer installations. The data thus captured can be transmitted to the central systems.
• Barcode readers in warehouses can sense movement of merchandise into and out of warehouses.
• Electronic counters installed along conveyor belts can count items passing along the conveyors.
• Electronic sensors can measure temperatures, voltages and such variables and record/transmit the measurements.

Where Do Software Come into the Picture?

All the equipment mentioned above, viz. POS terminals, handheld devices, barcode readers, electronic counters and sensors, and the scanner, cannot work without appropriate software. In fact, you have to look at the software and ensure that they have the features that you need. All software is not the same.

The software element is more obvious in the following cases that too are necessary to help you move to the paperless office:

• OCR software that makes the text character images on scanned documents into computer readable formats such as ASCII. This usually comes with the scanners.
• Search engine software that indexes all the documents and make them searchable in different ways.
• SCM and CRM systems that automates several interactions and transactions with suppliers and customers, eliminating much paper in the process.
• Content Management Systems (CMS) that integrates all the different kinds of documents into a common database that is easy to work with. Such CMS can accept documents being generated at numerous geographically spread out locations of an enterprise, and make the information available throughout the organization. All the paper documents are scanned into the CMS by scanning workstations equipped with heavy duty scanners, and OCR and indexing software.

There is one more step before you can confidently move towards a paperless environment. This step is needed to ensure that your electronic documents will be accepted by courts of law as evidence in case it becomes necessary.

It is comparatively easy to tamper with electronic documents and hence courts might not accept them as conclusive evidence. To overcome this problem, you have to install software systems and operating practices that would authenticate the digital documents in the system.

Thus an audit trail can be generated that logs every single event that has happened to a document. You will know who accessed it and when and what the person did with it. In such an environment, you can prove that a particular document has not been tampered with in any way.