Automated document generation: Why you need it and where to start

The business world is increasingly characterized by digital channels as the central place for engaging customers. Documents are no exception. But document processing can slow business processes, so businesses typically put a laser focus on documents as a top priority in their digitalization initiatives.

Automated document generation accelerates the creation and distribution of documents internally and externally, driving immediate business benefit.

In this blog we’ll answer the following questions:

• What is automated document generation?
• What are some of the benefits of automated document generation?
• What document tasks can be automated?

What is automated document generation?

Document generation is the method of creating critical documents like invoices, contracts, sales proposals, and work orders automatically. The automatic generation of documents like these can help accelerate and improve an organization’s everyday tasks. This process usually involves drawing up a specific document complete with its own layout and individual data. Each document is made up of static and dynamic information.

Static information

The static information is the data that doesn’t change from your template from customer to customer. For example, your company name and address in the header of the document.

Dynamic information

Dynamic information is the data that changes on your document template from customer to customer. This is usually the customer’s information, their name, account number, etc.

Example

Let’s take the example of a bank drawing up a contract for a loan. Each contract needs to be customized for every customer. It will use the same template, but the details will be different. Doing this manually takes time and effort and is subject to human errors. When automated, these issues disappear.

With the right document generation solutions, you can set up a process where creating a document, like a contract, for multiple customers a day, can be done easily in seconds by any business user. Each document is made up of the static content that will remain unchanged and the dynamic content that updates with each customer.

The benefits of document generation

Save time

The primary benefit of automating document generation processes is the time and tedium you save. By making this process automatic, your employees no longer have to spend their time looking for minute information that can be difficult to find. Nor do they have to spend energy creating and laying out the documents themselves. No more cutting, pasting and double-checking the details.

Eliminate human error

Because of the nature of manual document generation (the aforementioned cutting, pasting, checking), it’s easy for human error to creep in. Automated document generation removes this risk and allows employees to transfer accurate information into a high volume of document templates in a few clicks.

Automatic delivery and storage

When a document is created it usually has an intended destination—either a customer, colleague, or another organization. With the right automation tools, you can automatically route a completed document to the appropriate individual or team for sign-off, and at the same time save the most up to date version securely in your organization’s document repository.

Stay compliant

An ad hoc, decentralized, non-standardized approach to sending out documents is fraught with risk and a recipe for a compliance disaster. Automated document generation fixes this. Centralized, standardized document generation ensures teams send the right documents with the right data to the right people through the right channels, reducing IT and legal risk, improving customer experience, and driving regulatory compliance.

Business risk is a process problem.
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Automatically generate your documents

The automated process can be applied to a wide range of documents. The most common documents that organizations generate are:

• Expense sheets
• Invoices
• Sales contracts
• Proposals
• R&D reports
• Employee performance reviews
• Vacation requests

The list goes on. We have recently written about specific processes that document generation can help optimize. Check out our blog that takes a closer look at:

• Contract creation
• Customer service agreements
• Employee on/offboarding

Take your first step with Nintex

The first step on your journey to automate the document generation process at your organization is choosing the most appropriate software. That’s where Nintex comes in. Our automated document generation solution is built specifically for a business like yours. If you work in an industry that deals with documents every day, Nintex is for you. If your sales team’s concern is how to improve the customer experience, our document generation solution can help you speed up the sales process and marketing cycles.

Nintex DocGen will enable your organization to, among other benefits:

• Speed up the sales cycle
• Boost marketing productivity
• Automate document creation
• Expedite routing and eSignature
• Share documents immediately
• Extend the value of other solutions in your business, such as Salesforce

With Nintex’s document generation solutions, we’ll take care of the time and tedium that goes into producing necessary documents and leave you to concentrate on coming up with awesome campaigns, closing sales faster, and improving your compliance best practices.

 

 

If you’d like to learn more about how Nintex can help you automate your organization’s document generation, request a personalized demo today.