According to Restore, the average UK office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper in a single year. From experience, I see a number of our dental clients still prefer to use paper records so the problem isn’t isolated to the office.

Do you want to hear the worst part? More than half of this paper ends up in the bin. That’s a lot of wasted trees!

I bet you’re wondering why I’m talking about trees. Well, nowadays, there are lots of ways to go paperless within your business, and the benefits aren’t just to the environment. It can save valuable time and resources – and money!

Here are some simple switches you can make this month:

MAKE YOUR PAYROLL DIGITAL

Payslip statistics suggest that the majority of employees still receive a paper payslip, 60% to be precise. You may not be aware but there is now software out there, such as Pay Dashboard and Bright Pay to make your life easier and has made payroll processing digital. And better still, they integrate with each other. You can run your payroll and send payslips automatically.

Employees can also access all of their payslips online and keep them all in one place which makes it easier for them to track what they are being paid and when.

PUT YOUR BOOKKEEPING ON THE CLOUD

You often hear us talking about Xero because it really is the best for dental businesses. Xero offers so many ways to cut down on paper, but not only this, it can seriously cut down the time spent back and forth between you and your accountant.

You can upload documents (such as invoices and receipts) that relate to specific transactions on Xero to allow your accountant to view any additional information that is required without hassling you for a copy. It’s really easy too. Attach files to transactions and items in Xero from the file library or straight from your device. There’s a little icon in the top right corner of the transaction where you can click to upload a document (if you get stuck we can talk you through it).

If you want to be a real whizz, Xero have recently launched a data capture software called Hubdoc where the software extracts the relevant information from the receipt, bill or invoice and allocates it in an expense account for you. It can even access your bills automatically to save you even having to download them from your supplier.

These small changes will be great for the environment but also make sure your business is running as efficiently as possibly and ultimately leaving more money in your pocket. To discuss how to make the switch, get in touch.