The True Cost of Managing Paper

In an age of digital information, one would think paper usage would be declining. Not so. In fact, it is increasing. The cost of paper and associated costs of using paper are enormous but with procedures and systems built into most businesses for decades, many of these costs are hidden to the average business.  Therefore BuildingReports has compiled the below facts about the true cost of using paper from industry studies.  Compare the data below with the efficiencies gained by using a one-time digital capture method for any data recording procedure:

• A four-drawer filing cabinet costs about $25,000 to fill and $2,000 per year to maintain.  -- Delphi Group
• 45% of the files in filing cabinets are duplicated information, and 80% is never accessed again.  -- IDC
• Over its life span, a single sheet of paper ends up costing an average of $30.  -- Delphi Group
• US companies spend an estimated $20 on labor costs to file a document, $120 on finding a misfiled document and $220 to reproduce a lost document.  -- Coopers & Lybrand
• Associated paper costs such as copying, printing, postage, disposal, recycling and storing can be as much as 31 times the purchasing cost. Translated, a $5 ream of paper could actually cost up to $155—and that doesn't include labor.  -- Green Life
• 7.5 percent of all documents get lost, 3 percent get misfiled, and the average professional spends 50% of their time looking for information.  -- Gartner Group
• 90% of corporate memory exists on paper.
• 70% of today’s businesses would fail within three weeks if they suffered a catastrophic loss of paper-based records due to fire, flood or other natural disaster. -- Coopers & Lybrand
• 1 in 4 businesses will suffer a catastrophic loss.
-- U.S. Department of Labor