Are you looking for some urgent papers but cannot locate them? But how? You know which cabinet and file they should be in! Well, we’ve all been there! Documentation and paperwork is a hassle almost everyone wants to do away with; not because it isn’t important, but because it is cumbersome.Do you wish documentation was simpler for your field operations team? Well, it can be if you use field force management software to digitize everything! Let us see how!
In this article, we will discuss why manual documentation needs to be done away with in field force management. We will also talk about how digitization simplifies document management for the greater good in the organization.
Why Do Managers Need to Simplify Documentation?
Documentation can be a real nail-biter for managers, especially when they have to handle mid to large-size teams. After all, maintaining, verifying and authenticating documents for each field executive is too much work. Not to mention maintaining their performance reports.
What’s more, executive paperwork is not all the documentation managers concern themselves with. Field force managers also have to collect and manage documents from each task the executives follow.
From client forms, feedback forms, and other client documentation, the formalities never end.
Here are a few documents that managers have to take care of on a daily basis:
- Executive professional and personal details – including PAN, Aadhar, Driver’s Licence, etc.
- Executives’ task details – every task that any executive has undertaken and followed through in a week or month.
- Performance reviews – success rates and outcomes of each task handled by executives, both individually and collectively.
- Client information – the client’s background, their association with business, pros and cons of dealing with them.
- Client dealing paperwork – with each deal signed with each client, there needs to be some official paperwork. This paperwork is usually confidential since it mentions the specifics of company deals.
- Pay slips and invoices to and for the executives on the field.
- Customized forms for each specific client according to task requirements and already-known information.
- Feedback forms both from clients and executives regarding how well the team is functioning.
- Miscellaneous paperwork that might arise from daily functioning at the office.
Why Manual Paperwork Fails
Manual paperwork has been around for years. Therefore, completely negating it might not be convenient. However, recognizing the system’s flaws is the first step to improvement. The biggest problems to arise from excessive manual paperwork are:
- Paper Wastage: Manual paperwork means using way too much paper than required. Most of these papers require printing, something a company can very easily do away with but still do due to formalities. Wasting paper is not only expensive but also harmful to the environment.
- Space Wastage: The unnecessarily huge filing rooms and the mess they create! When you have too much paperwork to handle, you will obviously need either filing cabinets or a specific room to store them. That is a lot of space that can be used for profitable ventures instead.
- Complicated: When all files and documents start to look alike, major problems arise in terms of complexity. It gets cumbersome to go through huge similar-looking files and locate the ones you need. Nobody has the time and energy to look through multiple files to find that one paper needed.
- Confidentiality: Manual documentation arises a problem with confidentiality. This is mostly because manual documents can be misplaced or easily stolen. Instead of sitting behind a lock and key, there is hardly anything to protect them. However, most of these documents can cause major issues when in the wrong hands.
- Expensive Organization: Managers have things much more important to deal with than documentation. Therefore, they are likely to hire someone to organize paperwork and file them correctly. Hiring a person to expend their time and energy for organizing documents seems like an unnecessary expense.
The Future Lies in Digitization
As with most things in the current time, the right solution to manual paperwork issues lies in documentation digitization. Only when things are completely on the cloud, documents will be easily accessible, less wasteful, and easy to organize.
When you choose to operate your field force through an effective field force management software, you are likely to reap the benefits of complete digitization.
Digitization makes recording, saving, signing, and storing documents easier. What’s more is that digitization allows all documents to be stored on the cloud, making most of both digital and physical space.
Digitization is the future of field force management. This is mostly because teams have become more remote. Therefore, it is not only a hassle for executives to collect paperwork but also deliver it.
Digitization is also the future of documentation because all documents are automatically stored in an organized manner. All managers have to do is train their field executives to store documents in specific folders with specific names and voila! All organization is done. Moreover, the cloud allows easy document location as well.
Digitization of all operations related to field force management is the best way to go about managing an efficient team. Therefore, you should select software that will easily fit into any business model and operational style to make life simpler for managers.
Field Force Documentation Management Made Easier
Field force management systems are made specifically to simplify all operations related to managing a team of field executives. However, when you use TrackoField, you get some extra advantages that make the whole process even simpler.
Speaking of documentation, TrackoField offers the following benefits to strengthen the entire process:
- Easy Document Collection: Filing and collecting field force management documents on TrackoField is very simple. All your executive has to do is generate a form through a simple process and then give it to clients or anybody else to fill. The documents get saved on the software itself for easy collection and storage.
- Custom Forms: Not all clients and deals have the save documentational requirements. Therefore, TrackoField negates the need to handle multiple documents by offering custom forms. These forms have flexible fields that can be changed within seconds according to what information is relevant at the moment.
- Simplified Storage: Speaking of storage, field force management systems store documents on the cloud. Therefore, you hardly need any physical space to accommodate the large number of documents you have collected. Moreover, this storage is permanent and all your documents will be saved for as long as you need.
- Sign Online: No more do you have to generate forms online, print, sign, and scan them back. TrackoField offers online signing facilities that save paper, time, and a lot of effort. Not only can you fill in information but also authenticate it within a few seconds and with the least effort.
- Confidentiality: All documents are saved within the software in a password-protected or encrypted manner. While this might seem similar to lock-and-key confidentiality, it is much safer because digital passwords are harder to break. Moreover, executives do not have to manually carry sensitive information with them.
Benefits of Using Field Force Management System Cloud for Documentation
From all the information you grasped from the above sections, the biggest problem with manual documentation is space and time wastage. These are the two things field force management software will negate by storing all your documents on the cloud.
Cloud storage makes field force management simpler through multiple aspects. Some of them are explained below:
- Free up Physical Space: All documents will be stored in a digital space. Therefore, they do not need any physical space barring the server space required by the cloud. This space in the office can be used for better utilities and higher productivity uses.
- Safer Environment: Cloud documentation means less paper consumption. The lesser the paper is consumed, the safer our environment will be since fewer trees will be cut for the sake of documentation.
- Never Lose Anything: Cloud storage is more or less permanent. Unless you want to delete something, it will stay on the cloud for the longest time. Therefore, while manual documentation is prone to doing bad or getting lost, that is not the case with cloud documentation.
- Search and Locate: No more do you have to go through the hassle of knowing where a paper is and yet not being able to locate it. Cloud storage allows you to search through keywords so that each document pops up right when you need it.
Summing Up
Field operations managers have a plethora of things to worry about when managing a team of over five executives. From knowing their live locations to task implementation updates, there is too much to wrap one’s head around. However, adding an extra layer of documentation and managing paperwork is too much of a headache.
Using field force management systems is the best way to beat the heat that comes with excessive paperwork. With field force management software like TrackoField, you and your company do not have to deal with pesky paperwork anymore.
Sign, store, and organize all documents online to negate space, time, resource, and energy wastage. Step into the future of managing field force through automation and digitization.