3 Smart Ways to Use Mobile Forms to Boost Productivity

Every business has information that they need to collect, track and use as part of workflows. Having employees that work outside of the office presents a challenge when the data they collect needs to be delivered back to the office for processing or sent to clients and customers.

When information is collected through paper forms, processes slow down, time is wasted and you run the risk of errors during data entry, or never receiving data at all. Using a digital data collection solution like mobile forms can greatly reduce these risks, save wasted time and make it easier to both collect critical business data and deliver it to the correct places.

Here’s how can you use mobile forms to boost productivity and improve your operations.

1. Track Employee Hours & Send Invoices

Paper time sheets or time cards are easily lost, employees forget to fill them out and then guess about what their hours were, and it’s difficult to verify how many hours were spent at a location.

Using mobile forms with geo-tagging allows you to automatically see where your team was when they submitted a form—and provides you with a timesheet that is instantly digital and always up-to-date. If you need to bill your customers for your team’s time, mobile forms make it easy to convert the timesheets into an invoice.

2. Track Expenses & Create Expense Reports

Keeping track of receipts for expense reports and then filing and sending those reports along to accounting can be time consuming.

With a mobile forms app, staying on top of receipts and purchases is simplified because you can submit the receipt immediately following a purchase. Record the purchase details on the mobile form on your device and take a picture of the receipt with image capture. This lets you keep track of receipts as you go, instead of carrying them around.

You can even use one form and send expense information to multiple destinations. Email a picture of the receipt and the expense report to accounting, send just the dollar amount to a costs analysis spreadsheet, and invoice clients for costs incurred on their behalf all at once.

3. Take, Organize and Distribute Photos

Photo documentation can be a crucial aspect of your work, from demonstrating an issue with a piece of equipment or updating stakeholders on the status of a project. But taking photos, properly labeling them, then uploading and sending them out can be extremely time consuming, especially if you need to take more than a few photos a day.

You can streamline this process with mobile forms. Input your notes and any additional data into your form with your photos. You can also require geolocation and timestamp data for photos. After submitting the form, your photos are sent directly to the correct Destination, such as Google Drive, Box or Dropbox.

How to Start Using Mobile Forms for Business

Mobile forms give you the flexibility to replace and automate your existing processes, and send data in real-time from a mobile device. They are also easy to customize to fit your business needs. There are two main ways to get started using mobile forms for your business. Here’s a quick breakdown of each.

1. Replace Existing Paper Forms

Replacing existing paper forms with mobile forms is the first step to taking your business digital. A web-based form builder gives you the flexibility to create digital forms that resemble your paper forms, or to design something new.

Once you’ve converted your paper forms to mobile forms, they will be available to complete in the mobile forms app on your devices. This way, your team will always have the forms they need right on their mobile device. They’ll never run out of copies or have to carry stacks of forms with them to the jobsite.

Another benefit of mobile forms is getting access to accurate data more quickly. Once a form has been completed, it is sent right where you need it to be automatically. This gives the team in the office access to data sooner, and keeps processes moving forward. No one is sitting around waiting for paperwork to come in from the field.

2. Automate Entire Processes and Workflows

Mobile forms integrate with numerous other business web applications to accommodate your business data collection processes. Pre-built integrations make it possible to continue using your current software and tools as part of your mobile data collection strategy.

Processes that used to take days to complete can be reduced to minutes with automated workflows, which has a positive impact on productivity. You can submit a single form to begin an automation sequence, automatically deliver photos to your Dropbox account, sending a text message to a supervisor and emailing an invoice to a customer, for example.

Forms automation maximizes time saved. Rather than your staff spending their time filling out paperwork, they’re free to focus on serving your customers and growing your business. And that’s the real benefit of making the switch from paper to mobile forms. Eliminating paperwork lets you and your team get back to business.

Get started saving time and boosting your productivity with mobile forms. Try it free.