PAPER FILES: ARE THEY WORTH THE TROUBLE?
A TRANSACTIONAL FILING COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
What is transactional filing?
Transactional filing is a method of filing paper documents by the date on which they were processed in the agency system.
As agencies become more automated, the paper document becomes the last source of information, rather than the first. Instead of pulling a paper file to check the declaration page for coverage, service people and producers find the information they need on the agency system.
Transactional filing is the next step to getting full value from your agency system. If you're maintaining complete paper files for every customer, it's costing you more than some of those customers are worth. If the same information is in your agency system, do you really need to spend work-hours per day filing documents into account files?
Complete the work sheets below to find out what traditional filing methods are costing you, and what you might save with transactional filing. The agency in the example saved more than $6,800 dollars in labor costs annually, and freed up 15 hours a week of CSR time for account rounding and other productive activities.
What does traditional filing cost your agency now?
| Your agency | Example | |
| 1 Average annual salary per CSR | $20,000 | |
| 2 Working hours per year | 2,000 | |
| 3 Average hourly wage per CSR (line 1 divided by line 2) | $10 | |
| 4 Number of hours per day spent maintaining traditional files (locating, pulling, restapling, filing, etc.) | 1 hour | |
| 5 Daily cost per CSR (line 3 multiplied by line 4) | $10 | |
| 6 Number of CSRs | 3 CSRs | |
| 7 Total daily cost to maintain traditional files (line 5 multiplied by line 6) | $30 | |
| 8 Number of work days per week | 5 days | |
| 9 Weekly cost to maintain traditional files (line 7 multiplied by line 8) | $150 | |
| 10 Number of work weeks per year | 50 weeks | |
| 11 Annual cost to maintain traditional files (line 9 multiplied by line 10) | $7,500 | |
What would transactional filing cost you?
| Your agency | Example | |
| 1 Hourly wage of lowest-paid employee | $6 | |
| 2 Number of hours per day spent maintaining transactional files | .5 hour | |
| 3 Daily cost to maintain trans actional files (line 1 multiplied by line 2) | $3 | |
| 4 Number of work days per week | 5 days | |
| 5 Weekly cost to maintain transactional files (line 3 multiplied by line 4) | $14 | |
| 6 Number of work weeks per year | 50 weeks | |
| 7 Annual cost to maintain transactional files (line 5 multiplied by line 6) | $688 | |