Do these computer complaints sound familiar?
“Ugh! Where are you?”
“That’s not the version I need.”
“Stupid machine!”
“I want to toss this thing out the window!”
Ah, the harmonious sounds of employees and their computers.
It’s quite a love-hate relationship. Sure, technology greatly increases the speed and efficiency with which your staffers do their jobs.
But at the same time it’s made document management more challenging in many ways. Your finance staffers are often storing several versions of the same item, working from an outdated version or can’t even find what they’re looking for!
That puts a serious dent in your department’s productivity.
Even worse, sometimes the wrong documents get sent to clients, customers or other company execs.
Numbers tell the story
A recent survey by Perforce Software took a deeper look at document management difficulties plaguing companies of all sizes and in all industries.
Check out what your finance staffers are up against every day:
- More than half say they get confused about whether documents they pull up are the correct ones.
- 86% said they have versioning problems even if their company has a formal document management system.
- 73% find even just looking for a given document challenging.
- 47% have worked on a wrong version of a document.
- 48% have sent the wrong version of a document to a client, coworker or the boss.
Frustration levels are high as a result: More than three-quarters of folks say document dilemmas are more aggravating than locking their keys in a car. A third even admitted to shouting at their PCs.
Considering the types of sensitive and timely information your finance staffers handle on a daily basis, you can’t afford not to get a better handle on the files housed on Finance machines.
Do you staffers know how to do this?
Perhaps the most useful information you can offer your staffers? The methods to retrieve an earlier version of a file – even if they deleted it.
It can be done and can prevent a lot of stress, aggravation and even embarrassment for Finance.
Here’s how to retrieve a file your folks may think is long gone. Best part: It works for Excel 2013, PowerPoint 2013, Word 2013, Excel 2010, PowerPoint 2010, Word 2010.
This is well worth sharing with every member of your team.
If staffers have saved the file:
- Have them open the file they were working on.
- Click File > Info.
- Under Versions, click the file labeled (when I closed without saving).
- In the yellow bar at the top of the file, click Restore to overwrite any previously saved versions.
- Note: If staffers are working in Word, they can also compare versions by Clicking Compare instead of Restore.
If staffers haven’t saved the file:
- Click File > Info > Manage Versions > Recover Unsaved Documents in Word, Recover Unsaved Workbooks in Excel, or Recover Unsaved Presentations in PowerPoint.
- Select the file, and then click Open.
- In the yellow bar at the top of the file, click Save As to save the file.