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Collecting and storing client information is a core business activity. It empowers organizations to manage their workflow and improve their productivity. But it often sounds like a daunting task, as it is a time-consuming process for many. It is just because they are unaware of or not applying these time-tested practices. 

Here are those 10 simple ways to accelerate your document collection process:

1. Switch to Online Forms
   Manual document collection and management demands a lot of effort and time as mentioned. As a solution, you can switch to digital options. Online forms are one among them. You may use tools like Google Forms, Typeform, or JotForm to collect document information directly from respondents. These forms enable quick data entry and eliminate the need for manual document preparation.

2. Utilize Preset Document Templates
   Today, most of the document collection software comes with the advancement of predesigned form templates. You can make use of these predesigned forms as a time-saving solution. There will be pre-filled fields and placeholders for collecting necessary information. This simplifies the document creation process for the providers and ensures consistency across submissions.

3. Fix Deadlines Ahead
   For the timely completion of your projects and to improve your business efficiency, setting timelines and deadlines are very essential. Once you are ready with your deadlines, communicate them to your clients ahead of time. This naturally develops a sense of urgency among the document providers and speeds up the document submission process.

4. Provide Clear Instructions
   Transparency in communication is important to get things done without any time delays. Clearly communicate the required documents, formats, and any specific guidelines you may have to your document providers. This ensures that they are clear about what is needed and can submit the documents correctly at a stretch.

5. Provide Secure File Upload Platform
   Your clients may hesitate to provide requested documents if proper data security is not ensured. To avoid any such confusion or further delays in the document submission process, you can provide secure as well as, user-friendly file upload cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive or any other secure file-sharing tools. This allows document providers to upload their files quickly and securely.

6. Set Automated Reminders
   Setting up automated reminders is another good way to accelerate your document collection and management processes. When faced with delayed submissions, your preprogrammed reminders will automatically reach those specific clients at the set time. You can set up this feature through email automation tools or any project management platform.

7. Offer Option for Electronic Signatures
   Getting signed documents from clients is an even more time-consuming, tedious task. This involves so much of manual labor of scanning, printing, mailing, and a few other related activities. To avoid this, you can get electronic signatures from your clients to speed up the process.  DocuSign, Adobe Sign, and HelloSign are some of the popular ones among them.

8. OCR Technology Integration
   Data extraction is another repetitive task which takes a good amount of time. If you integrate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, you can speed up the entire process with ease. The tool will automatically extract data directly from scanned or printed documents. OCR tools can automatically convert scanned documents into editable text, saving time on manual data entry, as well.

9. Make it Responsive
   The device which your clients will use for your document collection process would be unpredictable. Today, people mostly prefer to complete such tasks using their mobile phones itself. Therefore, it is advisable to provide only mobile-friendly document management software for your clients to upload their documents. Providing mobile-optimized forms or apps can increase participation and speed up the process.

10. Regularly Review and Optimize
    Keep an eye out for any bottlenecks or areas that need improvement in your document collection process. This is an important activity to be performed on a regular basis to improve your business efficiency and accelerate all your client document transfer procedures. 

These are the successful, time-saving strategies followed by businesses for improved performance and productivity. Find out those areas of improvement for your business, and adopt the solutions which best fit your requirements. You can also take a look at online document collection sites, such as Docutick, one of the trending document collection software.