Home topics technology Accounting Advice Management Accounting Why document management is critical for small business growth Loren Webb July 1, 2019 Byline: Scott Crosby, CEO, Upstream The merit in going paperless for small and medium businesses (SMBs) is clear: digitally stored documents, information, and files save businesses time, money, and resources. SMBs are increasingly taking up document management technology to better manage their finances, customer data, and employee details, leaving behind the physical paperwork proven to hold businesses back. It’s critical that, as SMBs grow and take on new clients, employees, files and information, they have the right document management support. Many SMBs require more than just a simple cloud-based document storage solution, yet don’t need all the bells and whistles of more sophisticated enterprise content management solutions (ECMs). For example, Upstream’s recent partnership with Folderit offers SMBs a document management solution (DMS) which hits that exact sweet spot. It offers cloud based document sharing and storage with added features such as basic approval workflows, alerts and notifications, optical character recognition (OCR), full text search functionality, folder permissions, custom metadata, and version control. It’s important for managers and business owners to be aware of the accessible, cost-effective, and simple DMSs available that cater to SMBs’ needs. These solutions provide an easy and seamless complementary product to existing business processes, improving workflows, and helping SMBs begin the transition to a paperless environment. Many SMBs deal with a high-volume of transactional documents, substantive user access requirements, distributed workforces, mobile employees, and multiple