What are Workflow Management Systems and How Can They Benefit Your Business?

June 20, 2018

Although finding the right Workflow Management System for your business may seem like a daunting task, utilizing a Workflow Management Software can save your company time, money, and help in reducing errors. Here is our guide to Workflow Management Systems and how to pick the right one that fits your business’s needs.

What is Workflow Management?

Workflow Management is actually a simple concept: it is a process people use to get things done. As such, it’s more than likely that your business is already managing its workflow. What’s great about a Workflow Management System, however, is that it defines the steps that are involved in completing a task and delegates the individual roles that are responsible for each step’s completion. Evaluating your Business’s existing workflow processes is the first step in determining the right Workflow Management System for you.

The challenge that most businesses face these days is that even after mapping out their existing workflow’s, most of these business processes such as HR hiring and staff management, accounts payable processes, accounts receivable and many other are heavily paper-based.

Paper is produced and then moves from person to person depending on the number of approvals needed to accomplish a task.  These manual processes mean that it can take days sometimes to complete a workflow.

What is the Difference Between Business Process Management (BPM) and Workflow Management?

Business Process Management (BPM) is similar to Workflow Management in that it’s utilized to improve the way Businesses get things done. However, whereas Workflow Management is primarily focused on outlining the processes of individuals, BPM is focused on outlining the overarching processes themselves. BPM software often integrates workflow management systems with other systems to support the processes of an entire business. That said, Workflow Management Systems tend to be easier to set up and more cost efficient to upgrade than BPM’s.

Why Should Your Business Consider Using a Workflow Management System?

Depending on your business’s industry, there are a wide variety of benefits to using a Workflow Management System to automate business processes. Some benefits include:

1. The ability to assign tasks to individuals and track those tasks all in one organized place
2. Paperwork is significantly reduced or eliminated by moving electronic copies of documents instead of the physical paper
3. Reduces chances for error as electronic documents have the benefit of not being lost or miss-filed
4. Documents are automatically routed to the next person responsible in the Workflow process
5. The ability to automate repetitive tasks
6. Identifies employee performance trends over time
7. Keeps a record of what occurs in the system and knows what steps have been completed in a workflow and where a workflow might be held up waiting for an approval or decision
8. The ability to hold employees accountable
9. Improved internal communication

Tell-Tale Signs that Your Business Needs a Workflow Management Software

If you’re still on the fence about whether or not your business needs to invest in a Workflow Management Software, here are some tell-tale signs that your business is suffering without one:

1. There is a trend of employees getting confused about which steps they are responsible for within a task or project
2. You have to check with multiple people about the status of a project’s completion
3. Current processes take too long to get completed (e.g., invoice approvals for accounts payable)
4. The same data is being put into multiple systems/documents
5. Important documents have gone missing
6. Tasks get forgotten about or are completed late

Workflow Management Software Offered at OE Canada

DocuWare

DocuWare is a Workflow Management/Document Management and Business Process Management System that provides users with a clean and easy-to-use interface that helps to automate business processes through its workflow manager module.

What used to take potentially days to process, can now be completed in a manner of a few minutes.  Electronic documents are routed automatically to the appropriate person so they make decisions, issue approvals or send to others for more information.  This can be done from their comfort of their PC, or even while out of the office using their mobile device.

DocuWare also enables businesses to electronically store, search, and retrieve documents from one central repository; access files from anywhere, anytime; achieve the highest levels of security, compliance, and control for your critical documents; and much more.