It’s 2020 and technology is evolving faster than ever. Business meetings and classrooms are now held using video-conferencing software; Artificial Intelligence is being used to help companies better manage the supply chain; and we could potentially see a fully autonomous vehicle in 5+ years. Unfortunately, even with all these advances in technology that make our lives easier, many companies are still using antiquated methods for data collection and analytics. Paper forms are outdated, costly, bad for business, and bad for the environment. In this article I will discuss the top 5 reasons companies should consider ditching paper forms, common concerns about going Digital, and Fleetilla’s solution to this costly problem – FleetFORMZ.

Decrease Costs

The biggest cost associated with paper forms, is probably not the paper itself, or the ink, or the printers.  It may not even be the cost of storage.  The true cost of paper forms is the labor.  If the average Fleet Manager salary in the U.S. is $87,000 annually, and let’s say they spend 25% of their time on paperwork, that’s $21,750.  Add to that the average annual salary for a driver/field technician of $40,000 and let’s say they spend about 12% of their time completing paper forms - $4,800 annually for drivers/field technicians to fill out forms.   For a company with 1 fleet manager and 20 drivers/field technicians, the labor costs for paper forms could be $183,000.  

Increase Productivity

Research shows that sales professionals spend the same amount of time on paperwork and data entry as they do on sales related tasks.  Time that could be spent generating revenue is wasted on inefficient administrative tasks.  Studies show that office workers lose a third of their day to administrative work which includes collecting, transcribing, processing, storing, and retrieving paper-based data. Electronic forms eliminate the need for transcribing, filing, and searching for documents and allow you to access your data anytime and anywhere ensuring real time information so you can perform your job efficiently.  

"No Contact" Data Delivery

If you’ve ordered anything online in the U.S. recently, you’ve surely heard the term "No Contact Delivery". This new way of delivering products is a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic and is intended to reduce spreading of the virus through person to person contact. Digital forms can help in the same way. Instead of field workers delivering a paper form to office staff, they can submit the forms electronically for a No Contact Data Delivery.  You have now improved the safety and health for your workers and reduced risk and liability.  

Reduce Errors

Electronic forms allow companies to be in control of the type of data that is collected by making certain fields required and setting the format for each field.  No more missing or illegible data and no more transcription-related errors.  

Improve Analytics

How are you analyzing the data collected from paper forms?  In some cases, the data is manually entered into a spreadsheet and managers must sort, filter, create pivot tables, charts, etc. to get the report they need. With electronic forms, reports are available the instant a user submits a form.  Additionally, electronic forms can have features such as in-form image capture, calculations, and data validation to improve your analysis of the data.   

Questions? 

You may be wondering… How secure are Digital forms? How much will it cost me?  What kind of forms can I convert to electronic forms?  With FleetFORMZ, Fleetilla’s electronic form solution, you can rest assured that your data it protected in the cloud with our robust security framework.  We offer a variety of packages to suit your financial and technical needs.  We can create work orders, accident reports, expense reports, time sheets, fuel reports, proof of delivery, equipment inspection reports, and more.  So how is FleetFORMZ different from any other electronic form solution?  With FleetFORMZ we can take data from your telematics device and blend it with the electronic form, which saves your drivers/technicians time, reduces errors and improves fleet analytics.  

Our sales and customer support teams are standing by to answer all of your questions, so contact us for more information or to get started using FleetFORMZ.