7 Reasons to Use Paperless Forms

Businesses are ditching paper forms for electronic ones instead, and for good reason. But should you switch to paperless forms?

Approximate read-time: 5.5 minutes

The era of paper forms is coming to an end. While they have not disappeared entirely, there's been a clear shift over the past few years. More and more businesses are opting to go paperless.

There are plenty of benefits to going paperless, or at least reducing paper in your office. One area where you can do this is through your forms. No matter what kind of data you are collecting, chances are it can be collected digitally.

If you care about the environment, go paperless! If you want to stop the spread of disease, go paperless! As you'll read below, it's becoming borderline irresponsible to continue to use paper instead of going digital.

Without delay, here are our top 7 reasons to switch to paperless forms for your business.

1. Save office space

Have you got tons of filing cabinets stuffed in a room with barely any space to move? It’s a familiar set up in many offices across the world. But this doesn't have to be the case. You can drastically reduce the amount of paper you hold with a digital filing system.

Switching to paperless forms and making use of digital or cloud-based storage can save a lot of space.

One key benefit of saving office space is that you can save some money. If you clear space where you are already, you won't have to upgrade to a bigger office or pay for extra storage space.

2. Environmental reasons to go paperless

It’ll come as no shock to hear that paper isn’t great for the environment. Think about how many trees are stuck in your filing cabinets. A couple of sheets of paper here and there might not seem like much, but over time, even a small business can get through masses of paper.

If you want to reduce your environmental impact, then reducing paper usage and switching to paperless forms is a great step.

? Read the case study: Dance studio goes paperless with online registration

3. Save your business money

Saving money is always good news for a business owner. It's probably one of your favorite things to hear.

One simple way to save money is to stop relying on paper forms. There are ink costs, paper costs, printer maintenance and of course the storage of all that paperwork. All of these costs can be reduced by going paperless. There’s simply no need to spend so much on printing and paper storage when modern technology allows you to do all this online.

4. Become more efficient

Time is money, and if you can save time, this can only be good news for your business.

Sending out forms in the mail, waiting for them to be delivered, signed and then sent back to you again is so time-consuming. A simple sign-up process can take days or weeks when it should be quick and efficient.

With paperless forms, all you need to do is email a form or direct a customer to a page on your website. They can fill in the form instantly.

But what about getting signatures from customers?

If you’re worried about collecting signatures, then take a look at our post on how to collect electronic signatures.

? Operate a college? Here's how to create a college application form in WordPress!

5. Increase the productivity of your business

With all that time, space, and money saved, the overall effect on your business can only be beneficial. Making sign-up or feedback processes more efficient can give your company a much-needed boost of productivity.

And if that's not enough for you, here's another tip to put on your to-do list: start selling your services online! Save yourself the hassle required to sell face-to-face & let your website do the work for you.

Just think what you could do with all that saved time. Perhaps you could spend it winning more clients or thinking up new ways to enhance your value.

? You can even use paperless forms to create a to-do list in WordPress!

6. Forms can be submitted remotely

Trends in remote work, remote learning, and remote services are on the rise. So why are you still forcing people to fill out paper forms?

The most notorious offenders here are medical offices and college admissions departments. If you are running either of these types of businesses, please explain why you haven't yet gone paperless!

Imagine if your new patients could fill out their intake forms before arriving for their appointments? How about if prospective students could apply from anywhere without the burden of physical presence. The benefits of paperless forms are immense when you think of them from these perspectives.

What's more, people are coming to expect paperless forms. Unless you want your clients to think you are stuck in the past, you'd better make the switch!

? Students stuck at home? Use online forms to make a paperless quiz!

7. Contactless data transmission

Extending from the above, there's another reason why medical offices would especially benefit from paperless forms: contactless transmission of data.

Think about it! People are coming to the doctor's office because they are sick. Do you really want them to be touching pens and clipboards? This seems like such an obvious thought, but paper medical intake forms still seem like the norm.

One of the best ways to prevent the spread of viruses is to collect information remotely. If patients can fill out their forms remotely, they will also be spending less time in the waiting room. Prevention is the best medicine, after all.

And even if you use an iPad to collect inpatient data, they can be much more easily sterilized than forms, paper, and clipboards.

? Collect signatures anywhere, even in AJAX forms, using Formidable!

Wrapping up

There you go - are you feeling inspired? There has never been a better time to go paperless. And with all these great reasons, there's really no excuse to use paper forms ever again.

Looking for more ideas on how to take your business digital? Pay attention to the Formidable blog. That where we release our WordPress & form marketing tips. Sure to help any online business grow!

Hope to see you there. ?

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