When you work in accounting, one of the most important documents is a source document. For the uninitiated, a source document contains the details of a business transaction. These details could include the names of the involved in the transaction, amounts paid, the date, and other substances of the transaction. Frequently source documents have a unique number assigned by the accounting system. This numbering method is advantageous; if there are missing documents, the numbering makes it easy to tell.
Once the information in a source document has been recorded in the accounting system, the source document is indexed and archived. Documents generated within the past year are generally stored on-site, with older documents being stored in less expensive off-site storage facilities or converted to digital.
Source documents are vital for auditing. They serve as evidence that the transaction occurred. Some examples are canceled checks, invoices, expense reports, purchase orders, and so on.
From a reconciliation perspective, the management of these documents is vital for accurately completing the accounting process. All of this underscores the importance of having an ECM strategy--supported by Laserfiche. With Laserfiche, accounting departments can both aggregate and store source documents.
Another critical function is findability. Hence, not only will having these source documents readily available make the transaction reconciliation process faster, easier, and more accurate, but it also makes it far easier to gather needed information faster. This, in turn, allows you to translate that data into legitimate business intelligence, all of which can be used to make better and more informed decisions.
When you file a source document in Laserfiche, the system (through automation) extracts the required metadata. It can populate it into the appropriate ERP or accounting system, which means the days of rifling through boxes to find one invoice are over.
There are numerous benefits to moving to an ECM like Laserfiche. Including a few that accounting departments aren’t focused on. With the volume and velocity of documents you are working with, you are likely spending a fortune on physical document storage. Not only are you either paying for Iron Mountain or paying rent and equipment costs for a private space. By digitizing everything and moving to an information management solution, you could easily find yourself in a position where you’re able to downsize your physical office space — thus saving money every month without actually making any significant change at all.
Adding ECM to your tech stack allows you to improve how source documents are handled, stored, and found and gives you peace of mind knowing that records are available should you perform an audit.
Here’s a video we created to show how elegant Laserfiche is for accounting processes. Please let us know if you have any questions.
