While the world is fighting to go “green” and reduce paper usage and computers are now considered a safe and competent alternative I just cannot make that leap of faith to changing over again. Why is it that this is the case?

While the concept of going paperless was nice, as pointed out above it wasn’t really paperless, it was just different paper. When a bill came in we had to print a copy of it to place in our files should it be necessary for an audit or to dispute an error. The piece of printer paper was usually larger than the paper the bill would have come on to start with which defeated the purpose of switching from a conservation standpoint. We then realized that most businesses charged a fee to get an original copy of a bill over three months old which meant more paper- the folding kind of paper money going out of our pocket, to acquire a bill that would have otherwise been in our possession free of charge each month. In fact almost all businesses only offer a three month billing history on line free of charge.

A second is that there are times when the computer is down and you need information regarding billing right away to conduct daily business. You have two choices, either wait for the server to come back on line or put your business on hold. Perhaps you can try to handle matters by phone, but that can be cumbersome and aggravating especially if you do not have a hard copy of a bill or invoice to refer to.

The third bone of contention is how much personal and business information do you want out in the electronic world? Granted not everyone is hacked or has to deal with identity theft but when transactions are made on line they are floating around out there for anyone with the proper knowledge of how to do so to gain access to that information.

After our experience of going paperless we decided that for us it just wasn’t realistic or viable. We had to have official hard copies available at all times and on record to insure the ability to conduct business efficiently and accurately and insure that should a problem arise more than three months old we didn’t have to jump through hoops wasting time and money to prove our side of the billing story. It is true we do pay some bills electronically, but we always without fail demand we be mailed our paper copy of monthly statements for everything. This seems to be the only mix that works for us.

In summary the move to electronic transactions may be fine for those whom are paying a household bill or two per month, and far easier than writing checks and mailing them in, but in business the old paper way is still the best way. It provides a legally acceptable record of bills and payments as well as a good on hand backup reference immediately available whenever necessary.