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Going paperless not only saves trees, but it also makes for a very convenient digital environment. It will always be 10 x (or more) faster to find things that are stored digitally compared with the time it takes to find something in a shoebox or even a paper file, not to mention that pile of papers sitting to your right on your desk that you are scared to go through and find out what you overlooked 
I came across this discussion in one of my QuickBooks Groups on LinkedIn and thought that based on my own set up it was not only a great topic, but certainly worthy of a blog post here based on 4 Apps that enable you to go paperless.
I use the following programs to facilitate a paperless office:
Cute PDF writer:
Let’s me print anything (even a web page) right to a PDF file. Simple. This prevents me from going “TO” paper when my goal is to be paperless. Whenever I buy something online I print the receipt to a PDF and save it in a folder in Drop Box (see below) so I can access it any time. I also give detailed names on the files to make them easy to find. So a Godaddy receipt for a domain name might get a file name like “Godaddy 2011-03-25 nerdenterprises.com $7.99.PDF” and YES you can name a file like that with periods in the middle. Trust me, I do it almost daily. This is an easy free app that will keep you paperless at times when you might otherwise be inclined to hit that tree killing print button
Are you one of those people that likes to print e-mails? Personally I never understood that. It’s like driving in the wrong direction on the information superhighway. With Cute PDF writer you can print your E-mails to a PDF and then you can e-mail them. Or something. NEXT!
Drop Box:
Sync your files online and across computers with Dropbox. 2GB account is free!
Drop box is the next app I have for you in my guide to going paperless. I store all of my documents in Drop Box. This allows me to work in a local folder on my computer and also have access my files from anywhere because the files sync to my drop box account on the web. I can install the drop box app on any computer, sign into my account and the folders and files all sync up. There is even an app for all of your smart phones so that you can literally access your documents from your phone. This has really come in handy for me when I need to access my password file! I can also share the folders with my staff and clients which makes it easy to collaborate on projects and even QuickBooks Files!
Evernote:
Evernote is an amazing program and it has literally changed my life. When I get on the phone I open a note page and start taking notes. My Voice mail system is called IfByPhone (www.ifbyphone.com) and long story short it e-mails my voice mails to me in an MP3 file. I download the file from the e-mail attachment, drag it onto a note, listen to it, make notes and then tag it with “Voice Mail”. Then it either stays in a notebook called “Voice Mails and Other Calls” or it goes to the appropriate client notebook. So even my voice mail messages don’t get written down – truly paperless. With a paid ($45 annual) account you can embed any file type and PDFs are completely readable within the note. What’s great is there is no limit to how much data you can have. There is a limit to how much you can upload in a single month. I have not even come close to that limit.
So why use Drop box if Evernote does it all and also syncs to the web and also has apps for all of your smart phones? Evernote is an amazing product but it is not practical as a “File Storage” service. That’s what Drop box is for. Drop box lets you organize folders locally on your computer as it’s own “My Documents” folder. You can easily copy and paste files open, save, delete etc.. Evernote is where I keep certain key files that I want quick access to. Then you can use “Shoeboxed” (see below) to integrate with Evernote by having all of your receipts scanned and exported into your notebooks. Then you can tag and file them digitally. This is when paperless becomes powerful.
GET THE FULL LENGTH EVERNOTE VIDEO HERE
Shoeboxed:
To me shoeboxed.com is the final frontier in going paperless! Got receipts? Documents? Business Cards? I send it all into Shoeboxed.com now. They do the scanning for me. Then it provides a really nice export to Evernote where I can easily tag and store the receipts in a place that makes it ridiculously easy to find! Are you a data junkie like me? Great! Export all of the information to a CSV file and have at it. In seconds you can be creating pivot tables to quickly summarize and organize the information. What’s great about this is that you can create subsidiary accounts so you can manage your clients’ receipts within your own account. So you let them send you their receipts (or they can send directly using a folder you provide). Then you can download them and manage them. My video shows you there are many ways you can access and manage the data
Great list! DropBox & Shoeboxed are some of my favorite apps too. I’m going to check out the pdf writer. Linux does a great job of printing to pdf, but it’s a pain to have to switch between Linux & Windows. Thanks for the tips!
This is a great list! I especially enjoy the benefits Drop Box. The anytime access and sharing capabilities make it great additional to any business arsenal.
I would like to add Electronic Signatures as another application to your list. Leveraging eSignatures can help to push your organization to going completely paperless. Even in today’s marketplace with all the electronic tools and applications like those listed above, many businesses still print, fax, and ship their contracts or agreements. Using electronic signatures you can streamline and speed up the process, and take your operations completely paperless, getting over that final “paper chase”.
(Full disclosure I work for an electronic signature provider, eOriginal.)
Thanks Scott! I agree Electronic signatures are a good way to go! Why don’t you write a guest blog post explaining about it, and how it works, what the benefits are etc.. Send it to me in a word doc and I will post it up with your info. I don’t mind you giving a plug for your business as long as it is in the context of what I am discussing and as long as you are a real person with a legitimate business.
No problem! I’d love to write a guest post on electronic signatures. I can assure you I am a real person and eOriginal is a legitimate company. I believe you have my email through my comment if you want to let me know where or how is the best way to contact you I’ll be happy to get you a draft, hopefully by tomorrow or early next week. Also if you want to connect offline I’d be open to that as well.
And thanks for you follow up reply.
This is a great list. I use 3 of the 4 already. Just in time to remind of the great applications out there. I am on a mission this weekend to go totally paperless!
Thanks yes I love them too! I had recorded a live webinar about a month ago showing some of these and some others and offering some tips and tricks specifically for how I use these to remain paperless, which I can honestly say that I am. I do not produce any paper and any paper I receive (eg Receipts and bills) goes to Shoeboxed to be scanned and shredded. Here’s the link to the recording and good luck on your endeavor to going paperless. Not only is it better for the trees and the environment, it is SO much easier to find what you are looking for in a file on a computer as opposed to sorting through a pile of paper or worse, an actual shoe box filled with papers!