Document Automation and Document Management Go Hand in Hand
If your firm is like most, your reliance on technology has grown rather significantly in recent years. Firms of all sizes are increasingly adopting technology to boost efficiency in all areas of operations.
One area where firms can stand to benefit the most from technology is in managing the document life cycle – after all, documents are the lifeblood of legal practice. To fully manage the document life cycle, however, firms need to adopt two distinctly different technologies: document automation and document management.
While these solutions serve different purposes, they can work together to allow firms to bring efficiency to the entire document process, from creation through collaboration and storage.
Document Automation vs. Document Management
The document life cycle starts with creation, and this is where document automation tools come in. One of the most popular document automation tools on the market today is HotDocs. HotDocs allows teams to maximize efficiency, minimize risk, enhance compliance and improve document quality.
With HotDocs, you can generate and assemble new documents in a fraction of the time it has traditionally taken, thanks to streamlined templates and automation. HotDocs helps spot errors and inaccuracies that might otherwise be overlooked. The templates are customizable, meaning you can make sure they comply with internal business rules and your firm’s internal branding.
Document management tools, on the other hand, allow firms to store and collaborate on those documents after they’re created. In most cases, document management tools take the form of online or cloud-based repositories that are easily accessible to all employees within a firm. These tools provide built-in organization for all firm documents. Today’s most popular document management systems include iManage and NetDocuments.
Having only a document automation tool or only a document management tool is insufficient for complete control of the entire document process. To best manage the entire document life cycle, particularly in times of remote work, you want document automation and document management solutions that integrate and work together.
The Benefits of Integration
When you integrate your document automation solution and document management solution, you create a more seamless document life cycle than you would have with stand-alone solutions. While neither type of solution requires integration to work, both are more powerful when they’re running together.
Integrating document automation and document management has a number of significant benefits, including:
- Maximizing the overall power of your business systems by having technology that functions seamlessly to create the best possible result
- Boosting both efficiency in the document process and the productivity of your employees by removing the need to juggle multiple systems
- Increasing your ability to control your document output by being able to manage every document in one place from start to finish
- Increasing your ability to manage risk by applying automation across an entire centralized repository of documents
- Eliminating the duplication of document-related tasks, thereby increasing document accuracy
- Accelerating business growth by creating seamless functionality that allows your employees to do their best possible work
To learn more about how other firms are conquering the document life cycle with the help of HotDocs, you can read case studies here and here.
To experience the benefits of HotDocs for yourself, schedule a demo today.