Why Now Is the Right Time to Leave Paper Documents Behind
In many companies, towering stacks of files, paper-based workflows and manual data entry still dominate everyday operations. Yet it’s long been clear: digitising business documents is no longer optional – it’s essential for efficiency, legal certainty and long-term competitiveness.
Modern businesses need fast, reliable access to information – whether in the office, at home or on the move. Paper documents slow everything down: they’re hard to find, prone to error and costly to store. The solution? Digitalise, organise, automate – and do it smartly.
5 Benefits of Digitisation – More Than Just Saving Paper
Digital documents offer far more than just scanned copies. Here are five key advantages:
Speed and Accessibility
Digital documents can be found in seconds – regardless of time or place. Instead of searching through filing cabinets or archive folders, a single click gets you the information you need. Especially for decentralised teams or home offices, this is a real advantage. Centralised digital storage also improves knowledge management and avoids duplicates or outdated versions.
Increased Efficiency Through Automated Workflows
Digitisation isn’t just about storage – it’s the gateway to process automation. With automated document processing (IDP), often supported by artificial intelligence (AI), documents can be recognised, categorised and processed automatically. Invoices, contracts or delivery notes are integrated directly into relevant systems and workflows – reducing manual errors and freeing up capacity for higher-value tasks.
Fewer Errors
Manual workflows are prone to errors like transposed numbers, lost originals or incorrect filing. Digital document processing significantly reduces these risks. With automated validation, plausibility checks and full audit trails, you get consistently high data quality – the foundation for reliable decisions and audit-proof processes.
Security and Compliance
Paper is fragile – it can be lost, damaged or accessed by the wrong person. Digital documents can be encrypted, versioned and assigned precise access rights. Combined with secure cloud storage, this ensures protection from unauthorised access and enables compliant archiving. Especially with laws like GDPR or GoBD, this level of control is essential. And it makes audits significantly easier to manage.
Sustainability
A paperless office isn’t just efficient – it’s environmentally responsible. Reducing paper, ink, transport and storage space lowers your company’s carbon footprint. At a time when sustainability is becoming a key factor in tenders and client partnerships, digitalisation sends a strong message: we act responsibly and look to the future.
Which Documents Can Be Digitalised – And Which Can’t?
Many businesses ask: Which documents are we legally allowed to digitalise?
In most cases, the answer is: the majority of everyday business documents can be digitised without issue, including:
- Incoming and outgoing invoices
- Delivery notes
- Customs papers
- Shipping labels
- Contracts (unless original versions are legally required)
- Technical specifications and supporting documents
However, some documents must legally be retained in their original form, especially those with evidentiary value in court. These include:
- Notarised certificates
- Wills
- Original shareholder agreements
- Certain customs or tax documents, depending on local laws
It’s worth consulting the GoBD guidelines and your tax adviser or compliance team to be sure.
How to Achieve a Paperless Office – Methods, Tools and Best Practices
For years, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) was the go-to for digitising text. It converts scanned images into searchable text – a useful tool, but not enough for modern needs. OCR sees characters, but not meaning.
Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) goes further. Using AI, machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), it understands the content – even in complex formats like tables, emails, forms or handwritten notes.
The advantages:
- Higher automation through context-aware processing
- Less manual rework thanks to structured data output
- Faster handling of large document volumes
- Better scalability as document inflow grows
Modern IDP systems can even handle unstructured content like free-text emails or delivery slips – reliably and at scale.
Automated Document Processing with ExB
ExB is one example of how modern IDP systems work in practice. It combines proven OCR technology with self-learning AI models that adapt to your specific industry – especially logistics.
Whether delivery notes, customs forms or freight documents: ExB automatically detects the document type, extracts key data accurately and routes it into downstream systems – ERP, TMS or finance software. And it keeps improving over time: fewer errors, faster throughput, lower costs – all through intelligent automation.
endless possibilities.
ExB is an Intelligent Document Processing platform that transforms unstructured data from any type of document into structured results. Our AI-based software can not only extract all relevant information from your documents, but also understand them. This allows you to automate your processes and save both time & money, while improving your customer experience and employee satisfaction. Win-win.
Where Should All Those Digital Documents Go? Storage Strategies at a Glance
Digitalisation brings not only opportunities, but also new questions – and one of the most important is:
Where and how should digital data be stored securely, compliantly and for the long term?
Choosing the right storage strategy is key to the success of any digitalisation project. It’s about more than just disk space: speed, security, availability, scalability – and of course, cost all play a role.
On-Premise Servers
Documents are stored on your own servers – in a company-owned data centre or server room.
Advantages:
- Full control over infrastructure and access
- No third-party access
- Often preferred in highly regulated sectors like healthcare or R&D
Disadvantages:
- High maintenance and running costs
- Limited scalability
- Greater demands on internal IT resources
Ideal for larger businesses with dedicated IT teams and regulatory constraints.
Private or Public Cloud
Flexible and scalable – documents are stored on external servers and accessed via the internet.
Advantages:
- Rapid scaling and cost efficiency – pay only for what you use
- Accessible from anywhere – perfect for hybrid teams
- Automatic updates, backups and security patches
Disadvantages:
- Data privacy concerns, especially with non-EU servers
- Risk of vendor lock-in
- Strict compliance requirements (e.g. GDPR)
Tip: Choose EU-based cloud providers with ISO 27001 certification for data security.
Hybrid Models
Combining on-premise and cloud storage. Sensitive data stays internal, other data is outsourced.
Advantages:
- Maximum flexibility with tailored data protection
- Efficient load balancing between storage types
- Ideal for phased transitions
Disadvantages:
- More complex IT management
- Careful coordination needed across systems
Best practice: Define clear rules for data classification. Modern DMS platforms can automate this with configurable retention and access strategies.
Case Study: How a Logistics Firm Cut Processing Time by 75 %
A medium-sized logistics provider in southern Germany was facing a familiar challenge: huge volumes of delivery notes, invoices and supporting documents were processed manually – a slow, error-prone and resource-heavy operation.
The solution: a customised AI-powered IDP system from ExB, designed for logistics.
The results:
- 75 % faster document processing – multi-hour tasks now done in under an hour
- 66 % reduction in staffing costs – one part-time role replaces three mini-jobs
- 80–100 orders per hour processed digitally – previously a full afternoon’s work
- Throughput time for 100 orders reduced from 200 to just 30 minutes
- Paper loss eliminated – all documents securely archived and easily traceable
- Overnight availability – scanned documents ready in the system by morning
No hiring needed – automation covered the retirement of a team member without loss of capacity
Conclusion: Going Paperless Isn’t a Luxury – It’s a Strategic Advantage
Document digitalisation is a vital step towards more efficiency, security and competitiveness – especially in the logistics sector. It relieves your team, accelerates your processes and safeguards your data.
With the right tools, a clear roadmap and a strong partner like ExB, paper chaos becomes a digital success factor.
Start now – and future-proof your business.
