July 31, 2008: According to new research conducted by the UK’s YouGov, chartered accountants lose over £2 (AU$4.17) million per day in fees looking for documents.

Commissioned by the UK firm Invu, the survey highlights the amount of time wasted on locating documents that have been mis-filed, moved or lost, with 93 percent of accountants searching for paperwork each working day and a mere 1 in 4 having a digital document management system.

Furthermore, only 43 percent of documents in accountancy Practices are electronic, compared with 52% in all other companies. With upwards of 270,000 chartered accountants in the UK wasting up to one hour (worth £88 (AU$183) on average) of their time per day looking for documents, Invu says it is little wonder that this wasted time is costing £2 million per day.

The survey also revealed that accountants waste more time than looking for documents than other vertical markets, with nearly 26% of their time being wasted, compared to 21% in industries such as construction, legal and insurance.

Invu claims that the root cause of this inefficiency is reliance on paper records, as just 3 percent of accountancies have 91 percent or more of their documents saved electronically.

“Accountancy practices have to deal with and store huge volumes of documents for both compliance and audit purposes, so it’s not surprising that they are struggling to keep on top of each and every file,” said Invu CEO David Morgan. “But it is shocking to think that chartered accountants are wasting over £2 million just looking for documents.” 

“By simply deploying a document management system, accountants can streamline the management of all documents and records by ensuring that everything is filed electronically and is searchable at the touch of button, saving time as well as improving efficiency and productivity.”

25 percent of those surveyed have already implemented a digital document management system, and out of those that haven’t 27 percent claimed to be apprehensive about the upfront cost of making the switch.

By Greg McNevin

Original Article

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