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Physical Process Description

31 August, 2015 - 17:10

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As the name implies, paperless systems eliminate documents and forms as the medium for conducting business. In a truly paperless system, printed reports are replaced with screen displays of requested information. With the increasing use of EDI, electronic funds transfer (EFT), digital image processing, electronic mail, workflowsoftware, enterprise systems, and similar technologies, is the paperless office at hand? A growing number of organizations operate the bulk of their business processes using paperless systems. The major roadblocks are more likely to be organizational and behavioral/psychological than technological in nature. Over time, these cultural barriers to the paperless office continue to disintegrate as a new generation of managers—who have grown up with the computer as a fact of their daily lives—emerges. Online billing is one area wherein widespread acceptance is beginning to be noted. See Technology Excerpt 12.1 for a discussion of the benefits of online bill presentment and payment.

The physical model of the PtoP process presented in this section employs electronic payments and data communications technology. Although the process is not completely paperless, hard copy documents are held to a minimum.