Not too many years ago all documents in a typical Accounting firm were based in paper. Today, much has changed. Many of the documents are created in electronic format and stored on the computer. This may include personal and corporate tax forms, correspondence, spreadsheets, government forms, faxes, e-mails, financial statements, accounting reports, time & billing reports and Web-based documents, to mention a few. While some firms are still committing the majority of these documents to paper, other firms have begun to move away from paper by keeping only an electronic version of the document on file. The Problems with Paper Storage Paper has been the standard for document storage for many decades mainly because there was not an alternative. Now that paper has competition from technology, it is relevant to look at the pitfalls of paper and how these issues can be solved through Document Management. Consider the following: Paper takes up considerable and often expensive physical storage space. Paper requires extensive labour to organize, file and retrieve. Paper can become lost, misfiled or damaged. Paper can only be used by one person at a time without making expensive copies. Paper is expensive to produce, requiring expensive printers and printer supplies. Paper does not lend itself to a disaster recovery plan like fire or water damage. Paper is difficult to make secure without putting locks on all file cabinets.   The DOC.IT Solution Doc.It DM solves all of the problems with Paper Storage by:  Doc.It DM stores all documents in Adobe's universally accepted non-editable PDF format. All documents are compressed to save space.  Doc.It DM eliminates the labour to retrieve documents by putting all documents at the employee's fingertips.  Documents can never become lost or misfiled. Every word of every document is searchable using Doc.It DM's powerful search engine.  Documents are shareable with all Doc.It DM users, encouraging collaboration within an office.  Doc.It DM will eliminate the need to print or photocopy a large proportion of documents.  Doc.It DM provides an easy disaster recovery strategy through regular computer data backups.  Doc.It DM provides the ultimate in folder-based security, assuring that only designated users can access documents.