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Efficient document automation and document management are one of the keys to closing deals fast and making sure paperwork does not get in the way of securing business with major clients. Having a secure document management system also goes a long way to instilling trust in your clients that your systems are safe and reliable to use. In today’s digital age, there are several different ways of managing your organization’s documents, as well as automating them. But arguably Salesforce document generation is the most effective method of all. In this article, we focus on how Salesforce document management and automation can be a game-changer for your business. And while Salesforce itself doesn’t have robust native document generation capabilities, there are several official Salesforce partners who do. So you have lots of options to choose from when streamlining documentation for more deals, better business, and less administrative stress upon your organization. Read on for top tips and details. 

Document Management System 

So what is document management? Simply put, document management refers to the process of storing and organizing your documents. Back in the dark ages, before digitization, this was usually a manual process that involved painstaking labor and paper-based filing. Fast-forward to today and there are lots of document management software options to choose from to help you streamline your documentation. We think integrating with Salesforce is one of the most efficient ways to manage documents because it gives you direct access to the richest source of customer data on the planet. 

Document Management Software 

There are of course a range of great options to choose from when it comes to document management tools. Box, Dropbox, and Microsoft SharePoint are some of the biggest players out there right now and all give you convenient options to securely store your docs, organize them, control versions digitally, and be able to pull out the right file as and when you need it. The one thing missing from these document management options is direct access to a rich CRM. Most good document management systems do integrate with your Salesforce via a dedicated app, and we suggest that if you choose to use a document management system: you opt to go for one that connects easily to your Salesforce. This way your document organization will be enriched by access to the most accurate and personalized data on customers and partners. 

Salesforce has its own document management system and specific features that can help you perform necessary actions. For example, in the Files home area, you can upload and share documents, using Salesforce Knowledge you can share knowledge-base type articles, and in the Documents tab area, you can store and organize Visualforce files. Attachments are of course one of the simplest document management features Salesforce has and this enables you to attach files to records in your CRM. 

Document Management Workflows 

Digitizing your document management of course opens up exciting possibilities for streamlining your workflows. By storing your documents somewhere securely and in an organized way, you no longer need to worry about drowning in paperwork or spending hours organizing files. We suggest drawing on the power of Salesforce for document management workflows because the planet’s leading CRM has some of the most robust automation features on the planet. Read on below where we break this down in more detail. 

Document Workflow Automation 

Document automation software can provide your business with quick wins where you need them most. Imagine you want to get a big contract or quote signed quickly, instead of having to manually orchestrate the process, you can have automations set up so that your salespeople and executive leadership don’t need to waste time on admin. Instead, they can concentrate all their energy on interacting with, and building relationships with clients, and automation software can do the heavy lifting. Salesforce offers useful document automation capabilities namely via its Intelligent Document Automation offering which is available for Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Salesforce users as well as in Lightning Experience. 

Intelligent Document Automation from Salesforce enables you to pull data from an uploaded document via optical character recognition and then leverage this data to automatically start a flow, place in a queue, or add to a checklist. This enables you to automatically manage documents and assign them to workflows without having to manually sift through data for hours. 

The Limitations of Document Management and Automation in Salesforce 

While integrating your documentation with Salesforce provides several big benefits to your organization, it is not without its limits. One is that Salesforce does not always provide adequate storage so you will probably need to work with a third-party storage service like Dropbox. Salesforce also does not have the ability to automatically generate documents in a range of formats, and this is a big one! Document generation for Salesforce is the ability to dynamically generate documents by pulling data from your CRM system. Salesforce itself only allows you to do this for PDFs of your quotes but official Salesforce partners, like Titan, will give you the ability to generate any document from Salesforce in real time and for any use case. We suggest opting for a tool like Titan (you can shop around on the AppExchange). Third-party tools like Titan are often more cost-effective than Salesforce itself and can offer easy-to-use no-code options. 

The right tools will give you complete document generation abilities as well as document automation and management. The result? Lightning-speed documents so that your deals will never be stuck again. 

Wrapping up Document Management and Automation 

And that’s a wrap, we hope you enjoyed this article and learned more about the benefits of digitally managing and automating your documents. Salesforce may seem like a daunting system to learn if you are a newbie but just remember the basics: integrating your documents with this CRM will give you personalized and comprehensive views into each and every customer. And if you aren’t happy with some of Salesforce’s limits, or find it difficult and expensive to use, then why not try out a third-party system to help ease some of the burden and make Salesforce simple?