Best 13 Document Management Systems of 2024 (Free & Paid)

Throughout history, from ancient discoveries to today’s life-changing technologies, documenting and sharing our hard work has been a constant need. Now, imagine running a business and handling all the paperwork manually – contracts, employee details, invoices, and more. Sound like a lot to handle? It is!

Creating documents is easy, but organizing, accessing, and sharing them poses a challenge. Manual handling not only wastes time but also risks sensitive information. It’s time to bid farewell to old-fashioned methods and embrace a faster, more efficient way of handling workplace documents – the document management system (DMS).

Document management systems are your modern solution to streamline document filing, control records, retrieve information swiftly, and share files. This article is your guide to understanding why you need a DMS, the key features to seek, and a peek into the best 13 document management systems. Get ready to transform the way your organization creates, manages, and shares electronic documents. Read on!

Why Do You Need a Document Management System?

Utilizing a tool to manage your company’s documentation brings numerous benefits, and understanding these advantages is crucial when selecting the right document management system. Here are some of the most significant benefits of using a DMS:

1. Reduced Storage Space Costs

Storing paper documents incurs rapid costs, involving the purchase and allocation of space for file cabinets, boxes, and storage bins. This highlights the significant budget impact on document storage. With a document management system being a software-based solution, you gain the ability to free up space and store necessary hard copies off-site in more economical locations like a warehouse.

2. Ensures Document Backup/Recovery

Storing physical documents not only incurs high costs but also poses significant risks. The threat of fire, flood, earthquake, or other disasters looms, potentially erasing years’ worth of valuable information. Surprisingly, 40 to 60 percent of small businesses never reopen their doors after such disasters, given the near-impossibility of recovering crucial files.

Electronic storage of documents in a document management system, particularly one based in the cloud, offers a solution to this issue. It allows you to sidestep potential disasters, ensuring easy backup and protection of your critical information.

3. Ease of Document Retrieval

According to a McKinsey survey, knowledge workers dedicated 19% of their time to seeking information, irrespective of its digital or non-digital format.

A document management system streamlines retrieval by enabling employees to access necessary information from virtually anywhere through smart rich-text search. Depending on your chosen system, you may have the option to search through documents, wikis, folders, and workspace with pinpoint accuracy, further facilitating the retrieval process.

4. Improved Access Measures

While extensive access may seem beneficial, it poses risks. A substantial 41% of companies leave over 1,000 files containing sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and health records, unprotected and accessible to any employee. This presents a significant problem, as security issues can have severe consequences and potentially risk your business.

A document management system proves invaluable in addressing these concerns. It allows you to restrict access appropriately.

5. Enhances Collaboration Efficiency

As per a survey, 75 percent of cross-functional teams face dysfunctionality, often attributed to collaboration challenges.

By employing a document management system, individuals from diverse departments can effortlessly collaborate on documents in real-time. For instance, a marketing professional can easily send an invoice via email to an accounting colleague. The accounting employee can promptly process the payment and update the document status as “paid,” ensuring clarity for all involved.

In conclusion, a document management system optimizes processes, manages access points, and fosters collaboration, saving both time and money for your business.

Choosing the right document management system for your business

Effectively handling paper documents or disorganized digital files can result in inefficiencies, causing your organization to lose time, and money, and face challenges. The optimal approach to address these issues is to invest in a high-quality document management system tailored to your specific requirements. However, the challenge lies in identifying the right solution.

Before you go and acquire the first tool available online, it’s crucial to ensure it possesses the essential features and capabilities necessary to address your business needs. While document management requirements vary across businesses, there are fundamental features that every system should incorporate.

1. Access Control

Access restrictions play a crucial role in safeguarding your data with any Document Management System (DMS). Customizing access permissions allows greater control and flexibility in collaboration and DMS utilization. You can set specific permissions for individuals, departments, teams, and vendors or customers accessing particular files.

Without this flexibility, your document management system may be limited and less valuable, especially for larger businesses. Access restriction functionality is essential for any DMS, ensuring its usefulness across businesses of all sizes and industries.

2. Support for Diverse File Types

Businesses use a mix of file formats like PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and image files. So, document management systems must be flexible in accommodating different types of files.

If your document management system is limited to only a few file types, you might end up needing multiple systems, causing extra work for your team and duplicating your business information. Generally, the more versatile a system is, the better – this flexibility can streamline your business processes.

3. Smart Search for Easy File Location

Your document management system is designed to enhance document use and accessibility. Without efficient search capabilities, accessing important documents becomes challenging. Different document management systems offer diverse search options. The DMS you choose may rely on the search options that best suit your particular requirements.

4. Version History to Keep a Track of Changes

Your document management system (DMS) should show you a history of changes, making it easy to go back to previous versions and quickly identify who modified files over time. In case of data loss or accidental changes, there should be a backup copy available.

5. User-Friendly Design

Lastly, your document management system should be simple enough for consistent use and easy training for your team. If the system is too complicated, there’s a risk that your organization might not fully embrace it. Therefore, choose a system that’s intuitive so that your team can use it without any trouble.

Investing in a document management system tailored to your needs is key to efficiency. So, check these features and choose wisely to enhance collaboration, align processes, and protect your data.

Top Recommended Document Management Systems:

The list of different document management tools can seem quite daunting, but that’s why we have created a list of the best of the best document management systems on the market today! Thank you later!

Let’s go through each one of them in detail and decide which document system is best for you:

Bit.ai

In the field of knowledge creation and collaboration, the search for the perfect document management system often feels like a struggle. Bit.ai – is a revolutionary AI-powered document and wiki collaboration platform that is a smart solution for new-age document management.

Bit.ai simplifies the whole document management process by giving you a one-stop hub to create, collaborate, and organize information globally. This cool document management system lets teams and individuals create dynamic documents, wikis, and projects with impressive speed and intelligence.

And the AI genius magic? It’s not just an add-on; it transforms the way you write, research, and think creatively within the document management system. Now, let’s dive into the fantastic features that make Bit.ai stand out and shine:

1. Smart Digital Workspaces

While creating and managing documents, the need for seamless collaboration and organization is very important. Bit.ai’s digital workspaces understand this and provide centralized hubs for teams to create, edit, and manage documents collaboratively.

Digital workspaces eliminate the chaos of scattered files by ensuring that all your project-related documents, discussions, and updates reside in one accessible place. Productivity soars as teams align their workflow within these purpose-built digital workspaces.

You can create dedicated spaces for projects, teams, departments, and clients. This guarantees that all your folders, documents, media, notes, and wikis are centralized and easily accessible.

2. Smart Documents and Wikis

Do you know what happens when critical project details are buried in text-heavy reports? The answer is frustration, disengagement, delays, and potential errors. Bit.ai addresses this by providing a platform where documents become interactive hubs, fostering collaboration and improving comprehension.

You can easily embed images, videos, code blocks, and live embedded spreadsheets from your cloud file systems like Google Drive, OneDrive, Sharepoint, Box & Dropbox directly into your smart documents.

This transforms static documents into engaging experiences, promoting better understanding and collaboration. And that’s not all – easily convert your smart documents to a smart wiki by adding subpages. Now, you can neatly organize all your info in one smart place called smart wikis. No more messy workflows for you and your team!

3. Smart Rich-Text Search

Bit’s smart rich text search feature in its document management system is like having a super-smart assistant for your files. Imagine you’re looking for a specific detail in a document, and you only remember a few words or phrases. With Bit’s smart search, you can just type those keywords into the search bar. It’ll magically find the relevant documents, folders, and wikis with pinpoint accuracy.

For instance, if you’re searching for a meeting note where “budget” was discussed, just type “budget meeting,” and Bit.ai will quickly fetch the right document, saving you time and effort.

4. Real-Time Collaboration

Working together is an important part of document creation and management because it boosts creativity and ensures everyone’s on the same page. With Bit’s real-time collaborative editor, it becomes a transformative tool for an effortless teamwork experience.

Imagine you and your colleagues working on the same document simultaneously, making updates and leaving comments in real-time. It’s like having a virtual office where everyone contributes effortlessly.

Use @mentions to draw someone’s attention to a specific point, leave inline comments for instant feedback, and witness updates happening live. It’s teamwork made easy, as if you’re all in the same room, even if you’re miles apart.

5. AI Genius Writing Assistant

Imagine you’re working on an important report, trying to find the right words and structure. Without an AI writing assistant, you might spend extra time refining your writing or end up with a document that’s not as clear as it should be.

But no worries! Now, with Bit’s AI genius, you can easily generate outlines and templates, conduct research, and brainstorm just by giving a command. The best part? You don’t even have to worry about formatting. Bit’s AI genius has auto-formatting capabilities that auto-format your response neatly.

So, with Bit’s AI writing assistant, crafting compelling content becomes a breeze. Your documents will have a strong impact without the struggle.

6. Manage permissions

In any organization, not everyone should have access to all documents. If everyone could access sensitive company information, unauthorized changes, leaks, and confusion could arise, leading to serious consequences.

Bit’s access control features, like workspace access restrictions, act like a bouncer. It lets only authorized personnel into certain workspaces, blocking access to other departments, executive knowledge, etc.

This prevents accidental changes, maintains order, and keeps your organization’s information safe. Also, if you’re working on a project with external collaborators, you can bring them in with an authenticated guest login. This way you can grant them read-only or comment-only access to specific documents. Now, they can contribute without messing with the core content – like giving them a guest pass to your document ‘party’.

7. Advanced Sharing

Sharing documents and wikis is key for spreading knowledge across various workflows. If sharing is tricky or unsafe, problems like access delays, data leaks, and information loss pop up. Bit.ai provides multiple sharing options like live links, website embeds, and trackable links, so you don’t have to worry about these issues.

Share your work easily through a live link where information can be updated in real-time. You can also embed your documents & wikis on nearly any websites. It’s a smart way to share knowledge and update the content anytime without requiring developer resources.

Sharing through trackable links provides valuable insights into document engagement, allowing you to measure the impact of your shared content with analytics like visitors, views, etc. But it doesn’t stop there. You can add customized lead capture forms with various fields like name, email, and company to gather essential information.

Imagine you’re sharing a product catalog using trackable links and incorporating a customizable lead capture form. As prospects view the catalog, you collect valuable information through the form, including names and emails. This enhances engagement and acts as a powerful tool for generating leads and understanding your audience.

Utilize access features like password protection, which grants access only to authorized individuals, while document expiration adds an extra layer by limiting access duration. In short, advanced sharing isn’t just about collaboration; it’s about empowering your document management with access controls and insights.

Pricing:

Free Plan: $0 per member per month

Pro Plan: Starting at $8 per member per month, billed annually

Business Plan: Starting at $15 per member per month, billed annually

AI Genius Add-on: $10 per 100k words per month with any paid plan.

Read more: Top Employee Management Systems You Should Be Using!

 Alfresco

Alfresco is an Enterprise Document and Content Management System aimed to make your workflow smooth and streamlined.

Its core offering, a Digital Business Platform lets IT develop modern solutions for an efficient workflow.

The Digital Business Platform offers an Application Development Framework, and open-source APIs that allows:

• Integration with major applications like Microsoft Office, Salesforce, Google Drive, etc.
• Process services that allow business process documentation management
• Content services for better collaboration on digital content

If you work in a large enterprise, Alfresco might just be the way to go. However, it can be a bit intimidating with its many core competencies.

OnlyOffice

Next on our list is OnlyOffice, and as the name suggests, it aims to be your ”only office” outside your real office environment.

OnlyOffice allows you to upload a document, spreadsheet, or presentation from your computer directly to their web app and manage it from the cloud.

You can track changes made to the docs, leave comments, and access version history too. OnlyOffice supports various document formats including DOC, PDF, HTML, CSV, TXT, and more.

OnlyOffice aims to offer a complete suite of office apps like documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. OnlyOffice offers a plethora of features to organize every step of your business. Some of these features include:

Project management with task tracking, Gantt charts, time tracking, and reports collaboration

• CRM capabilities
• Email aggregation
• Document management
• Calendar integration
• And much more

OnlyOffice’s “community” allows employees to create news boards for sharing the latest company news and announcements, polls and surveys to gather data, the ability to share ideas and knowledge through corporate blogs and forums, and communicate with other teammates using instant messaging.

A noteworthy feature of OnlyOffice is the ability to connect any of the cloud storage services like Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, or Microsoft’s Onedrive and keep all your data in one place.

DocuWare

DocuWare is a digital document management tool that allows you to store your documents in electronic folders for easy storage, search, and retrieval.

By storing all your documents in a centralized document pool, you can reduce costs associated with traditional document filing systems which resulting in a faster, more efficient workflow.

DocuWare aims to reduce this time spent significantly by allowing you to retrieve your documents anytime, and anywhere with advanced document indexing and storage capabilities.

DocuWare also protects your files from unauthorized access and loss by providing regulatory compliance security features, and disaster recovery.

Google Docs

Google Docs has been around for quite some time now, 12 years to be exact. Since its inception, Google Docs has amassed quite a following in the cloud-based collaboration tool market.

It has a familiar interface like Microsoft Word, which helped it gain traction and make it easy for people to understand its nuances.

It’s intuitive and easy to use design, security, privacy features, and mobile apps to keep you connected to your documents 24×7.

Google Docs also provides a list of ready-made templates for documents like resumes, letters, brochures, etc. to create documents quickly and easily.

LogicalDoc

If you are looking to save time and resources by converting your hard copy paper documents into their electronic counterparts, LogicalDoc is another great solution.

LogicalDOC is an intuitive document management system that requires little to no training to get up to speed with.

Its easy drag-and-drop capability allows users to upload files in a jiffy. A capable solution for small as well as large businesses unlike, LogicalDoc facilitates fast content retrieval and process automation.

LogicalDoc allows users to create, collaborate and edit documents together, keeping records of document history and modifications.

Since LogicalDoc operates fully in the cloud, there’s no hardware or software setup to get started with it. LogicalDoc comes in three versions: Enterprise and Cloud, Business Edition, and Community Edition.

Confluence

Confluence, by Atlassian, is a document management and collaboration system for teams to communicate internally.

Teams can easily create, share and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and images. Features like automatic versioning, instant previews, full-text search, and pinned comments make it easy to manage your documents across all departments.

Share documents, PDFs, images, track every version and changes made to a page and connect to Jira to provide insight into their development work with automatic linking, quick issue creation, and reports.

Users have the ability to organize and share company information amongst employees and with their customers.

Confluence can be helpful if your team already uses Jira and HipChat by Atlassian, as it’s designed to work with those platforms.

Conclusion:

Every company needs to manage the huge amounts of workplace documents they produce, have the ability to safely store them someplace, and make them accessible to the employees and other stakeholders as and when needed.

Opting for a document management solution helps you gain a competitive edge over your competitors who are still wasting time creating, filing and looking for paper-based documents and files.

So what are your thoughts on the list document management systems mentioned above? Is your company using a particular document management system? Let’s have a chat in the comments below!

Further reads :

• How to Use Document Templates in Bit.ai?
• Top 9 Virtual Data Room Providers in 2022
• Best Collaborative Document Editing Software
• Task Management Tools Every Business Must be Using!
• Top 5 Business Process Management (BPM) Tools