Reducing costs while increasing efficiency and automation are key goals for E-Government. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimates their cost to process a single, paper filing is $7 while their cost to process an electronic filing is $1.15. The Small Business Administration estimates the savings from using electronic forms to be in excess of $50 per form, completed and filed with a Government agency.

More recently, President Bush stated in a recent interview: "We have a tremendous opportunity to make government more efficient and responsive through online technology or e-government."

In its report to Congress, the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act (SBPRA) Interagency Task Force encourages agencies to Utilize "Smart" Electronic Forms - Consistent with the Government Paperwork Elimination Act (GPEA), federal agencies should develop "smart" electronic forms that provide immediate feedback to ensure that submitted data meet format requirements and are within the range of acceptable options for each data field. Government forms should electronically fill-able, file-able, and signable and a model of "user friendliness" and efficiency.

People are comfortable filling out and submitting paper forms, but processing all this paper is very expensive. According to the Gartner Group, an IT consulting firm based in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S. businesses spend nearly $6 billion annually on preprinted forms; however, the cost to capture this information electronically, that is process form data, is estimated by Gartner to be 60 times that amount - $360 billion.

Streamlining and automating these processes, however, is not enough to make the supply chain more efficient and cut operational costs. A complete solution must automate, streamline, communicate, secure and track workflow processes throughout an enterprise for multiple users while reducing overall costs.

Gartner Group estimates that the amount of time wasted by the average worker on document-related, non-value-added tasks is currently 30% of each day. This figure is estimated to increase to nearly 40% of each worker's day by the year 2003. When combined with the industry standards for the actual costs associated with paper-based processes, it becomes evident how much time and money can be saved by automating with a complete solution.

Costs Associated with Paper

• The average document is copied, either physically or electronically, 9 to 11 times at a cost of about $18. 
• Documents cost approximately $20 to file. 
• Retrieving a misfiled document costs approximately $120. 
• Soft costs, such as onsite or offsite storage, physical plant, postal and distribution costs, vary according to the size of an organization, but are significant to the bottom-line.

The above statistics can be used to translate an actual ROI for a theoretical organization. For every 1,000 users, the following cost savings impact can be determined. The formula does not take into account soft costs, such as misfiled, lost or inaccurate files.

Assuming an average compensation of $55,000 per year, per user, the amount of time wasted on paper-based processes can be conservatively estimated at approximately $11,000 per year, per user. On an aggregate basis, $11 million per year is wasted (a conservative 20% of time wasted multiplied by the average compensation and number of users). As the volume and velocity of document based information increases, the problem is compounded.

Expected and realized benefits include:

• Lowered document production costs. 
• Elimination of data duplication and errors. 
• Increased data integrity. 
• Increased access by all supply chain participants.

Cost Savings with Formatta

The potential cost savings, combined with efficiency of process and workflow, provides ample argument to implement electronic forms and suggest ROI can be achieved in weeks not months. Additionally, the added value, efficiency, security, decreased turn-around times and competitive differentiation make a Formatta implementation a sound business decision. Contact us today at (888) 993-6767 or sales@formatta.com.

Section 508

Formatta is committed to Section 508 compliance.  We not only worked with several leading federal agencies, we worked with sight-impaired employees of those agencies.  Formatta built 508 accessibility directly into our products, and then incorporated additional suggestions from these sight-impaired federal employees during review and testing. As a result, Formatta works with JAWS, Magic, ZoomText and others to ensure the sight impaired have equal access to Formatta technology.