Paperless office: how to really make the switch

The paperless office has been promised for decades. And yet in most companies, file folders still stand on the shelves, invoices are printed out and contracts are sent by post. This is rarely down to the technology. It is because nobody has defined how documents will arrive in future, where they will end up, who will process them and which originals really have to be kept.

The good news: making the switch is easier today than ever before. Since 2025, invoices have increasingly arrived as e-invoices, signatures are done digitally, and AI sorts incoming documents automatically. If you have a plan now, you can largely get rid of paper within a few months.

In this guide you will learn what a paperless office is, what benefits it brings, which documents you still have to keep in the original, how to start in seven steps, what a good digital folder structure looks like, which software you need and what matters when working from home.

As DOCSHERO®, we have been supporting companies of every size and industry on their way from the filing cabinet to digital filing for more than 20 years.

Legal status and source review: 3 November 2026.

• Paperless usually means low-paper: the goal is for documents to arrive, be processed and be archived digitally. Some originals still remain on paper.
• 15 % of companies already work completely paperless according to Bitkom, and a further 24 % almost. The majority are still in the middle of the transition.
• You may destroy most records after scanning. Exceptions include annual financial statements, opening balance sheets and documents that require a handwritten signature.
• Structure beats scanners: first define receipt channels, document types, filing and responsibilities, then scan. Metadata instead of deep folder trees makes documents easy to find.
• The heart of it is a document management system with a digital mailroom, workflows and an audit-proof archive.

In a paperless office, documents arrive digitally or are digitised immediately on receipt. They are processed, approved, signed and archived digitally. Printouts are the exception, not the rule. File folders, filing trays and suspension files disappear.

In practice, it is rarely possible to do entirely without paper. Authorities send notices by post, customers send contracts in the original, and some documents have to be kept on paper for legal reasons. According to Bitkom, only 2 % of companies can communicate with authorities exclusively digitally. The realistic goal is therefore the low-paper office: paper that arrives is scanned once and then only processed digitally.

How far Germany has come is shown by Bitkom’s Digital Office Index: 84 % use at least one application for enterprise content management. And 72 % of companies use less paper than five years ago. Yet it is precisely in HR and accounting that most of the file folders still stand.

There are also challenges, and you should know them: the introduction costs time and money, processes have to be rethought, and not everyone in the team is happy to change. Bitkom asked companies why they still print. 48 % cited keeping a backup copy, 42 % simply habit, 37 % work steps that require it.

This is exactly where it is decided whether the paperless office works. If you only buy a scanner, you end up with the same processes as before – just with PDFs instead of paper. If, on the other hand, you think of processes digitally, you no longer print because there is no reason to. Especially when it comes to backup copies, an archive that everyone trusts helps: if every document is unalterable, backed up and can be found in seconds, nobody needs the paper copy in the cabinet any more.

The German Fiscal Code (Abgabenordnung, AO) is more generous than many people think: with a few exceptions, all tax-relevant documents may be kept “as a reproduction on an image carrier or on other data carriers” (§ 147 Abs. 2 AO). The prerequisite is that the procedure complies with the principles of proper accounting and that the reproduction matches the original. After scanning, paper documents may be destroyed unless another regulation requires the original. Photos taken with a smartphone are also permitted if the procedure is right.

Be careful with documents that require a handwritten signature by law. A notice of termination or a termination agreement in an employment relationship requires written form; the electronic form is excluded. Here, the signed original is what counts. You should also keep notarial copies, certificates and insurance policies for evidentiary reasons.

With e-invoices, scanning is not needed at all: the XML file is the original and must be archived unchanged. A PDF printout does not replace it. If you receive, check and archive your incoming invoice digitally, you have already dealt with the biggest pile of paper in the office. When it comes to scanning itself, resolution, completeness and quality control are what matter: if you want to digitise documents, it is best to define these points in advance.

The most important step is the one most often skipped: documenting the procedure. The GoBD (German principles for proper electronic bookkeeping) require scanning to be documented. The tax authorities recommend an organisational instruction for this, which governs who may capture documents, when they are captured, which documents are affected, how legibility and completeness are checked and how errors are logged. This instruction is part of your GoBD process documentation. If you want to follow a technical standard, you will find one in the BSI’s Technical Guideline TR-RESISCAN.

The order is just as important. Do not start with the legacy files. The basement full of folders is not going anywhere, and many of these documents will soon reach the end of their retention periods anyway. It is far more effective to digitise the ongoing incoming mail first. That way no new paper piles up, and the team gets used to the new processes.

Many companies simply recreate their old file folders on the network drive. Everyone knows the result: folders within folders within folders, everyone files differently, files are called “Scan_0047.pdf”, and in the end you still have to search. A good folder structure for the paperless office therefore follows a few simple rules:

• Flat rather than deep: no more than three to four levels, for example area, partner and document type.
• Organise consistently: either by topic (contracts, invoices, HR) or by origin (supplier, customer, authority) – but not mixed.
• Meaningful file names: date in YYYY-MM-DD format first, then partner and document type, for example 2026-11-03_Mueller-Ltd_Invoice_4711.pdf.
• No special characters: avoid umlauts, spaces, full stops and characters such as / or +, and use underscores and hyphens instead.
• Long-term format: PDF/A is suitable for archiving.

Even better than any folder structure is metadata. In a document management system, every document is given its document type, partner, date, amount or contract number when it is filed. Searches are then carried out not via paths, but via this metadata and the full text. A contract can appear in the customer file, in the project and in contract management at the same time without being saved three times. And because the system reads out metadata automatically on capture, nobody has to rename files any more.

The heart of it is a document management system. It connects the individual building blocks: via the digital mailroom, paper, emails and e-invoices arrive in one place. HEROclassify recognises the document type and starts the appropriate process, and HEROextractor reads out the important data. Business emails end up in the archive automatically with HEROmaildepot, and you sign contracts with HEROsign via providers such as Adobe Sign, FP Sign, Skribble or MOXIS. Which signature is sufficient for what depends on the types of electronic signature.

For teams working from home or at several locations, access from anywhere is what counts. With ELO you work in the browser, in Microsoft Teams or in the app, and with collaboration and mobility you comment on and share documents directly. You can run the system on your own servers or in our HEROcloud from German data centres. A DMS comparison based on criteria such as archive, workflows, integration and operating model helps with the selection.

1. Start small: one area, one process, one team. Success makes people want more.
2. Incoming mail first: not letting new paper arise in the first place is more important than scanning old folders.
3. One filing system for everything: no parallel worlds of network drive, email inbox and local folders.
4. Switch suppliers over: ask business partners to send invoices and correspondence digitally – for invoices, that is the way things are going anyway.
5. Question printing habits: instead of a backup copy on paper, an archive that everyone trusts.
6. Sign digitally: sign contracts, approvals and orders electronically.
7. Metadata instead of file names: let the system assign metadata instead of enforcing rules for file names.
8. Plan permissions from the start: who is allowed to see what? Especially for HR and contracts.
9. Store retention periods: retention and deletion periods per document type, so that the archive does not grow forever.
10. Measure success: compare processing times, early payment discount rate or search times before and after.

For HR, where according to Bitkom most of the file folders still stand, it is worth taking a separate look: certain payroll records must be kept electronically anyway. The discussion about the legal obligation to keep a digital personnel file from 2027 is therefore a good opportunity to digitise the entire file straight away.

For private individuals, there are hardly any statutory retention obligations. Exceptions are invoices for tradespeople’s and other services relating to house and property, which you must keep for two years, and documents in the case of very high income from letting or capital assets (from 2027 more than 750,000 euros a year). For everything else: keep it for as long as you need to prove something, for example for your tax return, warranties or insurance.

You should keep documents in the original permanently if they prove identity and parentage or are difficult to replace: birth, marriage and parentage certificates, ID documents, certificates of inheritance, school and employment certificates, pension documents, land register extracts and purchase contracts for property. You can scan everything else.

The self-employed and freelancers count as entrepreneurs for tax purposes. The same rules apply to their records as to companies: invoices eight years, books and annual financial statements ten years, and they have had to be able to receive e-invoices since 2025 – a normal email inbox is sufficient for this. Knowing how to receive e-invoices and archive them correctly is therefore a must for small businesses too.

For filing at home, a simple structure by area of life is enough, for example housing, work, finances, insurance, health and vehicle, with subfolders by year. Scan with your smartphone or a small document scanner, save as PDF and back everything up on at least two media in different places.

Legal status and source review: 3 November 2026. This article is not legal or tax advice – in individual cases, please involve your tax adviser.

• § 147 AO: rules on the retention of documents (German Fiscal Code)
• § 257 HGB: retention of documents (German Commercial Code)
• § 623 BGB: written form of notice of termination (German Civil Code)
• BSI: Technical Guideline TR-RESISCAN (TR-03138, German)
• Bitkom: 4 in 10 companies work paperless (24.09.2024, German)
• Bitkom: German offices say goodbye to paper and file folders (04.06.2025, German)
• Bitkom: Companies are printing less (09.04.2024, German)
• Bitkom: Analogue authorities are slowing down the economy (12.10.2026, German)
• German Environment Agency: waste paper and paper consumption (German)
• Verbraucherzentrale (consumer advice centre): guide to archiving at home (PDF, German)