It’s not the sexiest technology, but document management software can be one of the most powerful improvements you can make for your business. Regardless of the industry you’re in, you have a constant blizzard of emails, documents and contracts going back and forth, and every minute spent finding them, sense-checking them or signing them is time that’s not being used to benefit the bottom line. 

The collective burden of wading through documents trying to find the correct quote, conversation or contract can drag down every member of your team, and your company’s credibility - recent research by YouGov shows that 69% of workers are unhappy at work because of filing issues, and 58% said that their employer’s reputation was harmed by losing track of information. 

Using a document management software (DMS) to take control of this can be a game-changer, significantly improving your workflow, collaboration, and document security. The right system can help you stay organised, reduce risk, and streamline operations. This guide will walk you through key considerations when picking a DMS for your business, and the features you should look out for. The precise requirements will vary a little by industry - the best DMS for accountants and CPAs will include features that may be less useful for other sectors, like construction - but the magic of a DMS is that it supports the bread-and-butter tasks that are common to all modern businesses. 

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Security and Compliance

Every business needs to comply with business legislation, and for some that’s a greater burden than others. Straightforward administrative or trading work can get by with sensible financial reporting, while more elaborate industries like accountancy or construction have much heftier rulebooks to refer to. When considering the best document management software for your business, you should start with a good understanding of the rules for your sector (or talk to somebody who knows them already). 

To give a couple of examples, the best DMSs for Independent Financial Advisors (IFAs) need to include compliance features to adhere to regulations such as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), while healthcare businesses need DMS software that’s compliant with regulation like the US HIPAA to ensure the confidentiality of patient data. 

All businesses are subject to security and privacy laws, though, and that’s a list which is always extending. An actively maintained DMS, like Workiro, will help to keep your business in line with current legislation.

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Integration and ease of use

You and your team already have your hands full just creating documents, so you don’t want to make even more work just to organise them. You need to choose a system that is easy to use and integrates well with your existing tools and processes. A DMS that integrates with your accounting software, CRM, or project management tools can not only meet your legal needs but actually streamline workloads, eliminating the need to switch between different platforms. That can make a startling difference to overall productivity without changing anything else. 

As with legal requirements, the nature of the integration varies by business. For construction firms, the best choice of DMS is one that integrates with industry-standard project management software like Procore or Buildertrend. For markeeters, Retail businesses will be focused on point-of-sale and inventory management, while for marketeers Hubspot is probably the weapon of choice. The best of all possible worlds is if you’re already using a unified platform like NetSuite, which makes it easy to add powerful document management features without having to change your existing tools. 

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Document collaboration and version control

If you’re dealing with multiple staff and multiple clients, it’s likely you’ll need to collaborate on documents frequently - creating and shaping projects, reports, or client proposals. A DMS with real-time collaboration tools, version control, and the ability to track changes is invaluable. This ensures everyone is working with the most up-to-date information and reduces the risk of errors or confusion when different people end up with different versions files and/or reality. 

This requirement is at its sharpest for high-impact, highly-regulated businesses like law firms and CPAs, who routinely work on business-critical documents that undergo multiple revisions both inside and outside the company. The best document management software for accountants and law firms will support secure remote access for contract signings and approvals, which don’t require taking files and in and out of different platforms or workflows. Saving out a document for approval, then putting it back in, is another opportunity for the wrong version to get passed along.  One-click e-signing that works on a single platform means there’s no chance of things going astray. 

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Scalability and flexibility

As your business grows, so will your document management needs. It’s important to choose a DMS that can scale with your business, allowing you to add users, storage capacity, and additional features as needed. Most DMSs offer this as a matter of course, but the pricing is something to keep an eye on - look out for things like unlimited cloud document storage, rather than hosting costs that can sneak up on you.

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Cloud vs. on-premise

Depending on your business’s structure and preferences, you’ll need to decide between a cloud-based or on-premise DMS. In almost all cases, cloud-based is the way to go - it means that you can maintain a permanent backup and allow consistent access and change tracking for both your staff and your customers. Marooning business-critical data on a single server that needs to be manually supervised is highly inefficient, and only really worth doing for enterprises with acute confidentiality or security requirements - which nowadays is chiefly governments and high-end manufacturers. For everybody else, cloud storage is more reliable and perfectly secure.

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Cost and ROI

We’d say “this is the big one” but increasingly, it’s not - DMSs are highly affordable now, and the benefits they bring aren’t difficult to calculate. If you tally up the time being wasted through manual document admin, it’s not hard to see what you save by making it all go away - and if you don’t have time to tally it up, that’s telling in itself. The exact cost of DMS software can vary widely depending on features, storage, and the number of users, though, so it’s important to pick the right one for your business. Check out our guides on best DMS for CPAs, the best DMS for construction firms and the best DMS for IFAs for more detail on those industries. 

‍If you’re in a different sector, or you just want to get a more detailed sense of if your business would benefit from a DMS, then you should talk to one of our specialists. Book a 15-minute call and they can get an understanding of your needs and if we can help.