Additional benefits include: time and financial savings due to decreased paper handling, document loading, storage, distribution, postage/shipping, faxes, telephone, labor and waste.
The basic functions are to replace the cumbersome manual filling in of repetitive documents with template-based systems where the user answers software-driven interview questions or data entry screen.
[1] Today's more advanced document automation systems allow users to create their own data and rules (logic) without the need for programming.
Clipboard managers allow the user to save frequently-used text fragments, organize them into logical groups, and then quickly access them to paste into final documents.
Document handling within logistics, supply chain management and distribution centers is typically performed in manual labor or semi-automatically using bar code scanners, software and tabletop laser printers.
[citation needed] A number of research projects have looked into wider standardization and automation of documents in the freight industry.
[10] This has been seen as heralding a trend towards commoditization whereby technologies like document automation result in high volume, low margin legal services being ‘packaged’ and provided to a mass-market audience.