Manual paperwork is when a business manually records information in the form of hard copies, and a legacy system is a system or computer program that continues to be used by a business because of the cost of replacing or redesigning it and is not at all competitive and nowhere near the level of effectiveness and efficiency of its more modern counterparts. Both of these modes of storing information are extremely outdated, and manual paperwork can be just as bad for a business as a legacy system such as a legacy ERP system or some legacy financial software for business. Many people don’t know exactly why that is so and wonder why. Well, the following are some of the most significant reasons why manual paperwork is just as bad, if not worse, for a business as legacy systems:
Hard copies are vulnerable to being misplaced or deteriorating over time
Hard copies are quite prone to being misplaced because of human error or deteriorating and becoming unviable because of environmental factors over time. Information recorded on legacy systems is prone to becoming completely unusable over time too, and this is an extremely significant reason why manual paperwork is just as bad for a business as legacy systems.
Manual paperwork is just more work for employees
Employees do not, in the very least, like doing manual paperwork, and the reason why that is so is because there are many better, more effective, more efficient and quicker modes a business can use to record information, and the same can be said for recording information on legacy systems. Manual paperwork is just as bad for a business as legacy systems, if not more, because of all the extra efforts employees have to put into doing it.
Hard copies take up a substantial amount of space
What is definitely an extremely significant reason why manual paperwork is quite bad for a business is because hard copies take up a considerable amount of space, space that does nothing but cost a business money, money they wouldn’t have to pay if they switched to virtual copies, and space they could use for some other purpose if they didn’t have to store the hard copies. In addition, legacy systems also take a considerable amount of space, both physical and virtual.
Clients prefer the latest and greatest, not the outdated
Last, but certainly not the least, another reason why manual paperwork is just as bad for a business as legacy systems is because clients prefer the latest and greatest, not the outdated. Neither hard copies nor legacy systems are the latest and greatest of their kind, which is the reason why giving access to information to clients in the form of hard copies or a format from a legacy system is equally disadvantageous.