Document Creation Software: What it is & Why It Matters For Productivity
The way you do business constantly changes as new technology is developed and new trends come and go, but one thing remains constant — the need for automated document creation.
Your company may have graduated from handwritten documents to cloud-based electronic files, but you still rely on critical documents such as invoices, proposals, contracts, customer presentations, budgets, and internal policy statements to run your business and communicate with customers, employees, and suppliers.
If you’re in a business such as law, insurance, or banking, your day-to-day operations depend even more heavily on document creation and you have to hustle to produce and send policy documents, account disclosures, court filings, letters, motions, and other important communications.
Constantly creating documents takes a lot of time and energy. Some days you may even feel as if preparing documents is all you do, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Technology can’t make document creation obsolete, but it can make the process much faster and easier with the help of document creation software.
What is document creation software?
Document creation (also known as document automation, document generation, document assembly, or document preparation) software allows you to convert text-based documents (typically, word-processing files) and PDF forms into powerful productivity tools called templates.
You can use it to automatically create documents individually or in large batches and to automate your document review and approval process.
In other words, automated document creation software helps you transform document preparation and review from a repetitive, error-prone manual process to a fast, reliable automated process.
How does document creation software work?
It all starts with creating templates for the documents your business uses most. You can set up templates for invoices, contracts, legal briefs, account disclosures, policy documents, proposals, presentations, letters, and any other type of document you create frequently.
Automated document creation software allows you to pre-populate your documents with custom design elements and standard text such as contract terms or legal disclosures. When it’s time to create a new document, all you have to do is choose the type of document and the appropriate template and fill in any new information such as dates, names, addresses, or payment amounts.
You can build templates based on document type or even a particular customer. For complex forms or communications, you can use document creation software to apply business rules and set up a series of queries to make sure your documents contain the right information every time.
Want to see document automation software in action?
HotDocs is the market-leading provider of document automation software. Get your free demo today!
What are the benefits of document creation software?
Document creation software comes with a long list of benefits for your business. Take a look at the top seven ways document preparation can help you:
1. Significant time savings
You can create a single contract in minutes or mass produce updated policy documents in a fraction of the time normally required. You can save even more time by using your document creation software to automate review and approval. Less time on document creation means more time for activities that help your business grow.
2. Fewer errors
Accuracy matters. Small errors such as typos or accidentally omitted legal disclosures can lead to big problems. Using standard templates and automatic document creation eliminates the need for cutting, pasting, manual formatting, and trying to remember what should be included in each form of communication. As a result, you experience fewer errors and improved consistency.
3. Easy integration
One of the best things about document creation solutions is how easily they integrate with the tools you already use. They work seamlessly with Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other common office applications and data sources to pull in the design elements, formatting, and text you need to build custom templates and produce high-quality documents.
4. Better branding
Document creation software makes it easy to personalize all your documents with consistent branding elements. You and your team can effortlessly create documents that look professional and represent your unique brand.
5. Stress-free compliance
Legal disclosures are critical in banking, insurance, government, and legal documents. You can land in big trouble for forgetting to include or update information required for legal compliance. A good document creation solution includes compliance controls that help you avoid compliance worries by ensuring legal disclosures and other important information are automatically included when needed.
6. Simple scalability
With traditional document creation, your ability to grow is limited by the number of documents you can create. You can’t take on new clients if you don’t have the capacity to create the proposals, contracts, presentations, and invoices you need to conduct additional business. Document creation solutions are easily scalable and allow you to quickly produce as many documents as your business demands.
7. Improved customer experience
Your customers will be delighted with your ability to quickly produce and distribute accurate documents with consistent format and branding.
Which document creation software should you choose?
If you’re excited by the benefits of document creation software and ready to implement automated document creation for your business, your next challenge is finding the right solution. There are multiple options available, and you could easily get overwhelmed with researching and evaluating different solutions.
We suggest starting with HotDocs! With over a million customers in 60 countries, we’re an established leader in document creation and automation. We offer document creation solutions specifically built for the legal, insurance, banking, publishing, and government industries.
Don’t just take our word for it. Explore HotDocs Advance for your SMB or Enterprise organization and learn why other professionals trust HotDocs.