How to Use Predefined Forms to Automate Hours of Work

Forms make the business world run. No matter what department you work in, you likely have to deal with paperwork of one type or another. While paperwork records vital data about different aspects of your business, the sheer amount of time it takes to complete and maintain everything is a huge drain to company resources.

Trying to create a new form every time you need to create an asset record or update inventory sheets doesn’t make sense. While most people don’t purposefully go out of their way to create extra work for themselves, not having predefined forms does exactly that.

How Do Predefined Forms Work?

Whatever tracking, ticketing, or maintenance software you use to manage your business operations, you likely already have some predefined forms there. Whether you created them yourself, or the software came with them, your business is already using them to some degree.

It’s likely that you use templates for your forms that serve as the basis for many aspects of your business. This is most common in your balance sheet and accounting.

Think of pre-defined forms as software-specific templates. Each form has what type of information it needs along with a specific format. For example, in your predefined asset forms, you can create fields for item description, location, model, department, maintenance records and more. Or in your balance sheet, you can create a form that stores all the information from your last sheet.

Why Use Predefined Forms?

By far the greatest advantage to using pre-defined forms is automating your record keeping. Trying to create forms from scratch each time you need to update or create a new record is exhausting. Even if it only takes a few minutes to make a new form, think of all of the times you and your employees go through this process. Depending on the size of your organization, it could take up hundreds of hours a week to generate and fill out these forms each time you need them.

Here are some places you can start using predefined forms to cut down administrative hours:

• Balance sheet
• Asset records
• Appointments
• Reservations
• Purchase orders
• Invoices
• Income statements

How to Start Using These Forms in Your Workflow

The best places to start using predefined forms are the ones you use most often. What forms do you and your employees use more than anything else? Purchase orders? Asset records?

Whatever it is, create a pre-filled form in your software solution that has all of the information that tends to stay the same between uses. Even if there are some instances where this information is different, filling out your forms with data that holds true for the most part will save you hours of time.

If pre-filling isn’t the solution, consider creating forms with drop-down menus. For instances that tend to only have a few options, you can simplify the filling process by reducing the amount of typing your employees must do.

Once you’ve created a form you feel accurately represents how things are done in your organization, upload it to your software solution. Take some time to educate your employees on how to access these forms and use them for streamlined record keeping.

Asset Panda makes it easier than ever to incorporate predefined forms into your asset tracking solution. In fact, the backbone of our platform is built around them. We wanted to create a platform that would simplify your life.

Want to see how these forms could benefit your business? Sign up for a free trial today!