Going Paperless: 5 Benefits of Ditching Paper as a PCO

You’ve likely observed many industries, from business to healthcare, removing all paper products from regular business operations. And that’s what going paperless in the pest control industry means — doing away with the endless paper products and transferring company data and operations to a digital solution.

If you’ve been in the industry for several years now, you may be accustomed to using paper products as part of your company’s everyday operations. Invoices, customer applications, and chemical tracking are just a few of the business processes that are commonly done on paper. 

Despite the benefits that exist, going paperless is a leap of faith—but it’s one that you need to take. Making the move to a cloud-based solution has many benefits, including:

1. Cost savings
2. Privacy and security
3. Access information anywhere
4. Increased efficiency
5. Going green

Pest control companies worldwide are making the transition.

But why?

1. Cost Reduction

At first glance, it may not appear that paper is such an expense, but paper costs can mount surprisingly quickly.

Think about it, how much time do you, or your office staff, spend stuffing envelopes with billing notifications, or printing out tech routes and service tickets?

What about the money spent on paper supply, stamps, and labor?

When it comes down to it, running your pest control company on paper is costly; cutting out such costs is just one of the many advantages of switching to a pest control software and going paperless in the pest control industry.

First, we’ll look at the office where invoicing, billing, renewals, and contracts can add up.

However, the cost of paper alone is not the only expense. Companies spend thousands of dollars a year on toner, ink, postage, and the purchase and upkeep of copy and fax machines.

Adopting software like Briostack to handle all documents for your business means eliminating these costs completely.

Below is a chart outlining the savings you could potentially* gain by going paperless.

In short, it’s what you would cease to spend if all those paper-based operations stopped, replaced by more efficient digital mediums and methods.

Office

Materials	Invoice/Billing	Renewals	Contract
5.5¢ Ink and toner/sheet	0.11	0.11	0.11
6¢ paper cost/sheet	0.12	0.12	0.12
6¢ envelope	0.06
6¢ return envelope	0.06
50¢ stamp	0.5
8¢ Supply Cost	0.08
10¢ Personal Cost	0.1	0.1	0.1
Total	1.03	0.33	0.33
Cost Per Month	$103	$6.88	$9.90
Cost Per Year	$1,236	$82.56	$118

Next, the technician. If your not paperless with Briostack, you’re printing out daily route sheets and service tickets. These daily operations can add to the ever-growing paper costs.

Tech

Materials	Tech Route Sheets	Service Ticket
Ink and toner/sheet 5.5¢	0.11
Paper cost/sheet 6¢	0.12
Personal Cost 10¢	0.1	0.1
Carbon Copy Sheet 11¢		0.11
Total	0.33	0.21
Cost Per Month	$82.5	$210
Cost Per Year	$990	$2,520

 

Total Savings

Month	$412.28
Year	$4,946.56

Overall, you might be spending a fair amount on paper, maybe more than you think, not to mention the amount of time spent preparing each letter or schedule.

Of course, each company is unique to the customer base, the number of technicians, method of billing, etc. These differences mean a difference in potential savings, but savings nonetheless.

By going paperless in the pest control industry with Briostack, cloud-based data, automated notifications, tech apps, intelligent routing, and many other features will make your business more efficient, cutting out costs and saving you time and resources.

It also provides your customers with online methods of payment, making it much easier to pay the bill. With all that extra time, you could focus on growth or simply more time at home.

No matter your size, going paperless in the pest control industry might be the smartest decision you make this year.

*ASSUMPTIONS

Customers: 3,000

Services a month: 1000

100-200 Letters a month

5 Technicians

As the years pass, paperwork storage can become expensive, taking up office space or demanding additional off-site storage, incurring even more costs to your business. You can easily eliminate this need by storing your paperwork digitally.

2. Safeguarding Private Information

Storing your company’s information on paper comes with certain risks, the first being a lack of protection against disasters or accidents that may happen in the office or storage facility.

Having company information saved using management software like Briostack secures it against such events and eliminates the need to shred or physically lock up sensitive paperwork.

Saving your company’s data in a digital medium decreases the chances of it falling into the wrong hands. Protecting your documents digitally means that any person will be met with several walls of security before accessing any data.

3. Access Info Anywhere

Using Briostack to handle your company’s data means that it’s readily available to you and your business partners to access from anywhere in the world.

Situations arise and instead of meriting an extra trip to the office, you’ll be able to access critical data at your fingertips. Retrieving data immediately upon needing it means saving time, and in the long run, money.

4. Increased Efficiency And Revenue

More time waiting for invoice transfers and billing means less time actually making money. Chuck Cohen, a Forbes Magazine contributor, business founder, and CEO described this connection.

“Maximizing your organization’s velocity is a must if you hope to expand your business in this hyper-connected era. Simply, if you delay a transaction, you delay revenue – in certain instances, you may even lose a sale. Paperless processes can help prevent this issue by helping you provide a better, faster, and less expensive or higher margin service. Your clients will appreciate the efficiency of your operation and will reward you with more business.”

The quicker and clearer your salesmen and women can be during the sales process, the more comfortable the potential customer will be and the more likely they’ll be to do business with your company.

Using digital software provided by Briostack during transactions with your company’s clients rather than the traditional paper and pen contracts used in the past will speed the sales process, increasing commissions for your salespeople and revenue for your company.

5. Going Green

Last, but certainly not least, removing paper products in your day-to-day business operations will decrease the impact your company has on the environment.

This will likely be something important to your customers as well. Several surveys in the United States have shown that consumers will purchase products for higher prices if they know that they are sustainable or earth-friendly.

Click here to see an inside look of what Briostack pest control software has to offer.