This section provides an overview for electronic forms as well as their applications and principles. Also, please take a look at the list of 9 electronic form manufacturers and their company rankings.
Table of Contents
An electronic form is a form that is usually kept on paper and stored as electronic data. By eliminating paper forms, the space required for storage can be reduced.
By using electronic forms, companies can reduce the use of paper as an environmental resource and even cut printing and stamping costs. For companies, the ability to manage electronic forms also has the added benefit of improving operational efficiency.
In some cases, shifting from paper to electronic forms can also prevent the loss of data due to natural disasters. In addition, it can improve the company's image by reducing the use of environmental resources.
An electronic form is also one of the legally recognized methods of document storage in most developed countries. Although many companies have not yet introduced electronic forms, the use of electronic forms is expected to increase in the future.
Electronic forms have many advantages over paper forms. Taking advantage of these, electronic forms are effectively used in a variety of situations. For example, they can be used to automatically create forms, improve the efficiency of form transmission, and reduce the cost of form management.
Electronic forms can be created automatically. When creating forms, it is difficult to change the layout and wording of paper forms.
However, by using electronic forms, it is possible to easily create forms from system data. By utilizing data to create forms, it is also possible to automatically create forms.
Electronic forms can streamline the transmission of forms. With paper forms, a lot of work is required when sending a large number of forms.
For example, there is a lot of work involved in printing out a large number of forms and enclosing and shipping them one by one. Electronic forms, however, use data, so even large numbers of forms can be sent nearly instantaneously.
By using electronic forms, the cost of managing documents can be reduced. Electronic forms have many advantages over paper forms, including reduced storage space, clearer filing, and less time spent searching.
Companies are legally obligated to retain documents such as periodic records, medical examination schedules for individuals involved in specific business activities, minutes of shareholders' meetings, and various contracts and guarantees for the respective legally prescribed periods.
For this reason, the use of electronic forms instead of paper helps to save space. Furthermore, by using electronic forms for detailed purchase orders and invoices, the time and effort required to search for and create paper forms can be reduced.
Many electronic forms are data versions of content that has previously been created on paper. For example, they are created and stored in Excel, Word, and PDF formats.
Acceptable electronic forms include scanned PDFs of paper documents and other data converted to image data. The advantage of electronic forms is that the data is easy to create.
The disadvantage of electronic forms, however, is that they can be tampered with. Therefore, electronic forms must be both convenient and secure.
There are fraud prevention measures for important electronic forms. For example, by restricting access privileges to different users, or by setting up settings such as "view only" or "no printing", it is possible to prevent unauthorized use of electronic forms.
On the other hand, there are cases in which electronic forms can be made available to any necessary member at any time. The system's functions for limited-access electronic forms include automatically erasing documents whose retention period has expired and automatically categorizing documents as they are created.
Time stamping of electronic forms is necessary to prevent the risk of falsification during the process, unlike documents stamped on paper. If an electronic form is time-stamped at a specific time, it can prove that it has not been modified since then.
In addition, if a cloud service has been newly confirmed to be difficult to tamper with on the receiving end, it is also permitted to use the service to store data. This allows companies to move their systems to the cloud.
*Including some distributors, etc.
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