Document creation and management challenges scale in complexity as organizations grow, and it’s not just a matter of the raw volume of documents. Document variations also come into play, as different versions of a document may need to be sent to different regions, or in different languages. For many organizations, their existing processes get bogged down by increasing complexity and manual work — copying information between systems, manually sending documents and manually entering data all contribute.

And those manual processes will only get more cumbersome with further growth.

Document automation provides an answer to these challenges, while allowing organizations to scale and personalize their documents. These solutions allow organizations to build dynamic templates and automate many of the tasks that slow things down. As with any technology, it’s important to choose the right solution for your needs, but how can you really tell if you really need a new document automation solution?

Assessing your current processes is a great place to start. You’re likely to find efficiencies just by updating outdated processes. In addition to document creation, consider the workflows involved in sending and esigning documents. Document management is another common area for improvement, as many organizations lack a centralized platform for managing different versions and controlling access to document templates. These are capabilities that some document automation solutions, but not all, have out-of-the-box.

The important thing to remember is that what you’ll get from your new document automation solution will be well worth it, as long as the solution offers a few key capabilities:

• Seamless document automation integration with leading CRM, ERP, CPQ, and ECM platforms with advanced API

• Interactive document generation with automated workflows

• Robust, user-friendly features on a single, intuitive document automation platform

• Automated management of any number of unique document templates, even those with channel-specific complexity

• Ability to pull data from multiple sources

A completely integrated document automation solution can seamlessly handle challenges ranging from basic contract automation to complex reporting. One other important thing to consider is the usability and learning curve associated with the solution. No-code or low-code solutions empower business users to create complex, dynamic and engaging document templates without the need for technical knowledge. This also makes these solutions highly scalable, since business users don’t need to rely on IT to build new templates or generate accurate documents consistently.