Are your financial processes still riddled with manual tasks that are inefficient and prone to errors? While these processes may be “good enough” at face value, they carry lots of hidden costs, including staff labor hours, lost documents, and delayed decisions. Finding and fixing errors adds to the nightmare.
2026 is the time to make the change. Cloud tools are more mature and accessible than ever, regardless of the size of your business.
Ready to take the leap? Our guide offers a practical roadmap to go paperless without disrupting your day-to-day operations.
The Three Financial Processes to Digitize First
Going paperless doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing endeavor. You’ve got to start somewhere, and it’s important to choose a launching off point that will provide a strong ROI and set the stage for the next wave of improvements. The three financial processes you should focus on first include:
1. Accounts Payable (AP)
Paper invoices will slow you down. They can create filing headaches and increase the risk of late or duplicate payments. Digitizing your AP workflows delivers near-instant wins, including the following:
- Automated Bill Capture: Scan or email invoices into your accounting system without retyping anything
- Approval Workflows: Route bills to managers and enable automated reminders to ensure they are approved in a timely manner
- Payment Scheduling: Avoid late fees and reduce rushed payments
You’ll enjoy immediate time savings of several hours per month.
2. Expense Reports
Few processes waste more collective time than manual expense reporting. There are so many inefficiencies embedded into the process, such as employees delaying submitting receipts and finance teams chasing missing documents.
A digital expense workflow fixes that with:
- Mobile receipt capture that avoids missed turn-in deadlines
- Automatic categorization using AI
- Built-in rules to prevent mistakes
These simple changes allow you to save a few hours per person per month.
3. Contract Management
Paper contracts get lost, buried, or forgotten altogether. This leads to costly auto-renewals that quickly add up and hurt your bottom line. Digitizing your contract management workflows enables the following improvements:
- E-signatures to speed execution
- Centralized contract repository with permissions
- Expiration and renewal alerts to avoid surprises
Digital contract management tools often pay for themselves within the first year.
Recommended Tools by Category
Zabel & Co. typically recommends tools that integrate easily with accounting systems and scale as your organization grows. Here are some tools to consider by category:
For accounts payable automation:
- Bill.com
- Melio
- QuickBooks Bill Pay
For expense management:
- Expensify
- Divvy
- Ramp
- Dext
For contract management:
- DocuSign
- Adobe Sign
- PandaDoc
Make sure to take advantage of demo opportunities so you can identify the platform that is the best fit for your business.
Change Management: Getting Team Buy-In
Choosing the right technology isn’t the real challenge; getting everyone on board is. Resistance among your team may sound like:
- “I’m not tech-savvy”
- “The old way works fine”
- “I don’t trust the cloud”
- “We’ve always done it this way”
Don’t force the change. Instead, focus on helping your employees understand the benefits of going paperless. Discuss how adopting new technology and processes will make their day-to-day easier and less tedious. Additionally, address their questions and concerns head-on to minimize resistance. Set yourself up for success by:
- Ensuring leadership models the behavior you want to reinforce
- Setting firm cutoff dates
- Getting everyone involved in the transition early
Perhaps most importantly, you need to provide adequate training so they feel comfortable using the new tools you are providing them with. When your employees are skilled and confident, you’ll enjoy a stronger ROI and a condensed time to value.
There are so many ways to deliver training, such as:
- Micro videos
- Just-in-time help
- A buddy system
Offer ongoing support as well. Look out for the hybrid trap where part of your team is paperless, and the remaining members are doing things the old way. Set a firm date to end the paper processes entirely. This date should be a maximum of 60 to 90 days out.
Start This Month
You don’t need a massive transformation all at once. To get started:
- Calculate your current paper costs
- Choose one process to digitize first
- Demo two or three tools and make a selection
- Set your paper-free date for that process
Small steps in the right direction produce compounding benefits. Need help getting started or choosing the right tech? Partner with Zabel & Co. for turnkey software solutions. Contact us today.