Understanding Document Generation: A Comprehensive Guide

Manual document creation is a major thorn in the side for the majority of small and growing businesses. I mean think about it — how much time are you yourself spending each week compiling information, trying to find a template to use, and trying to write out your own documents by hand?

Not only is this process time consuming and inefficient, it can create security issues for your team if you’re storing documents on-site, locally on your computer, or sending them through email. Not to mention, it can create customer service issues when it’s time for new clients to sign. I know what you’re thinking, “There’s got to be a better way.”

Document generation means automating all of the tedious parts of creating and sending documents by taking the entire process digital through the use of AI and automated workflows. Continue ready for insights on how document generation gives you a better way to manage the documents that keep your business running.

What is Document Generation?

Document generation is a type of software that is used to create documents based on data provided. In many cases, document generation software can be connected to your CRM to generate different types of documents with users names, phone numbers, and other crucial information included. In general, document generation can be used for things like contracts, waivers, and most any other type of document your business may need.

What is an AI Document Generator?

An AI document generator is a type of document generation software in which the user enters a prompt, and a document is generated using artificial intelligence based on the specified parameters provided. For example, a user may type something like, “Generate me a document that is a contract between party A and party B for the sale of marketing services.” Once the user enters this prompt, the AI document generator will then pull data and scan other contracts to create a document with all of the outlined information included.

Using these two types of document generation together can seriously reduce the amount of time employees have to spend manually creating documents and doing research on what types of information needs to be included. And, it helps make filling and signing documents easier for your customers. 

Benefits of Implementing Document Generation in Your Organization

Document generation doesn’t just help with the creation of documents. If you’re struggling with getting responses or collecting accurate data, document generation tools can have a big impact on your results. As a whole, the benefits of document generation include:

Faster Turnaround Times for Documents

Taking your documents digital has a big impact on turnaround times — this is something we’ve always known. But, using document generation means you’re able to pull in previously collected contact data to pre-fill fields with the appropriate information. That means less work for customers filling out forms. On top of that, you can use document generation to allow users to sign digitally. With the right tool, that is.

Improved Accuracy and Consistency of Data

Collecting info on paper often means that some data will get lost in translation. And, people filling your document may simply leave some fields blank. When you use document generation, you have the ability to customize fields on your document and require responses where they matter. Collecting this info digitally ensures everything entered is legible and ready to use.

Better Customer Experience

We all know how tedious paper documents are. Customers have to print, fill, sign, scan, and email their contracts or other documents back to you, and that’s a lot of steps to take. Document generation is a great tool for giving customers a better impression of your brand. On top of cutting out all of those extra, annoying steps we just mentioned, the right document generation tool allows you to automate sending your documents so your team can focus on answering their questions.

Increased Security

For most any business, security is a top priority when it comes to collecting customer data. Not only are data breaches costly, but they greatly impact brand image. Sending documents through email creates vulnerabilities for your business. Using a document generation tool means you can send documents via the secure server of your chosen tool. This also gives you a secure way to store documents once they are complete. Be sure to research what types of compliances your prospective document generation tool meets.

Types of Documents You Can Automate by Industry

Document generation can benefit virtually any industry that uses documents. We’ve broken down a few of the essentials for you.

Legal

For attorneys and paralegals, drawing up contracts can be incredibly time consuming. Using document generation as part of your legal contract automation helps cut down on non-billable time by creating an easy way to access and reuse crucial documents, while cutting out follow ups. The use of AI document generation for legal teams also cuts out the initial steps of drafting up contracts and other legal documents by allowing you to enter a prompt and make edits to your newly created document as needed.

Contracts & Agreements

Contracts and agreements keep legal practices running. The advantages of contract management paired with document generation mean faster creation of documents, faster responses, and the ability to cut out non-billable hours overall. Sending contracts to be signed using automation software allows you to collect legally binding signatures and keep customer inputs secure.

Court Documents

Court documents often include multiple forms, agreements, and pieces of evidence. Compiling these into a single document packet is simple with document generation, helping you stay organized and focus on your case.

Legal Case Briefs

Legal case briefs have a set of fields that must always be included, such as the name of the case, parties, facts, rules, procedures. This means you can create document templates which can be copied, modified and reused for each new case you embark on.

Financial Services

The financial service industry runs on paperwork, it’s just a fact. But, handling that paperwork doesn’t have to be a huge, confusing lift with help of document generation and automation tools.

Regulatory Reporting

Regulatory reporting requires financial employees to submit data for regulators to evaluate their financial institution’s operations. Preparing this paperwork accurately is essential, and doing it digitally can help prevent unnecessary errors. Document generation allows you to enter your inputs and use a software to generate a completed document to send for evaluation.

Customer Statements

For accountants, providing customers with a statement of transactions that includes invoice amounts is a key piece of their operations. With document generation, you can enter in the dates you would like to include and have a statement generated for you, rather than pulling all of the data in by hand.

Invoices and Billing Statements

Like spending time on invoices? Yeah, neither does anyone else. With the help of AI document generation, you can use transaction data and prompts to create a ready-to-use invoice that can be easily sent to clients to make sure you get paid faster.

Insurance

Insurance documents are a hassle to create without the right tools in place. Luckily, insurance document automation helps ensure compliance, speed up claims processing, provides better customer service and more.

Document generation allows you automate essential insurance documents like:

Policy Documents

Policy documents are legally binding agreements that need to include the right language and be certified with a signature. With document generation you can easily create these documents with the information you have prefulled, and add a spot to collect a legally binding signature from your clients.

Claims Documentation

Claims documentation covers a large number of crucial documents like security agreements, letters of credit, deeds of trust and more. With the right document generation and contract automation tool, you can create packets of documents to file together and keep your workflow organized.

Insurance Quotes and Proposals

Insurance quotes need to include specific information from applicants, making every one that you send unique. Document generation allows you to collect your info from applicants using a form and generate that into a professional quote for applicants to review.

Healthcare

Healthcare professionals deal with a lot of paperwork on a daily basis. Document generation allows front office staff and physicians to easily create the forms they need to get the right information from clients, keep data secure, and stay organized. With the average physician spending more than 10 hours a week on paperwork according to AMA, automation is crucial.

Healthcare processes that can be automated with help of document generation include:

Electronic Health Records

Electronic health records need to be secure but accessible to authorized users in order to meet HIPAA requirements. The right document generation tool will allow you to authorize and segment users to ensure the right people have access to the patient documents they need.

Patient Records

Quickly generate a form with fields pre-filled with the info you already have. Once patients fill out their documents, this information can be stored in your CRM for current, updated patient records.

Insurance Claims

Document generation allows you to generate insurance claims with all previously collected patient data included, making it easy to get payments completed for your facility.

How to Choose the Right Document Generation Software for Your Business Needs

Choosing the right document generation can be hard if you don’t know what to look for. These 4 things are essential to look for in a document generation software.

Document Automation

Document automation refers to the ability to automate the emails, follow-ups, and storage of completed documents using workflows. The benefits of document automation are vast. Document automation is powered through workflows that connect and move all of the pieces that go along with creating, sending, and storing documents. With the right tool, you can automatically route documents to your customers, get notified when it’s time for you to review a document, and even automatically send out reminders for customers to sign.  This is a major time saver, and greatly reduces the risks of documents getting lost along the way.

AI Document Generation Features

Sometimes knowing where to start with a document is complicated, that’s why seeking a tool that supports AI document generation matters. AI document generation takes the guesswork out of compiling documents, so looking for a tool that lets you do that and use your generated document to create a template can make things vastly easier when it comes to content creation.

Legally Binding eSignatures

What good is a contract without the ability to get it signed? After you generate documents, sending them out to be signed is important. Tools like Docubee feature eSignatures that are legally binding in a court of law, and incredibly easy for customers to complete. Incorporating the ability to sign with an eSignature into your document workflows eliminates extra steps and helps leave the right impression with customers.

Integrations Capabilities

Last but not least, having the ability to integrate document generation with your current CRM or other favorite tools is a must to get the best documents possible. With a CRM integration, your document generation software can access and pull in data you’ve previously collected to help you generate better documents. Once your document is signed, filled, and completed, a CRM integration also allows you store newly collected data and completed documents for cross-tool access.

Tips for Maximizing the Effectiveness of Your Document Generation Process

Like anything, you get what you put into document generation. Choosing a document generation software with the right tools to support your business and all of the different documents you process is essential. But, you also need to set up the processes within your system to really work for you.

The following tips will ensure your document workflows will run smoothly:

Leverage Reusable Content and Templates

Who likes creating the same exact document over and over again? Having the ability to create reusable document templates means you can generate a document from scratch once, make changes as needed and use it thereafter. Setting up a small library of these reusable templates right off the bat will make it easy for yourself and other employees in the long run. And the good news is that you can use AI document generation to create your templates and get started quickly.

Incorporate an Approval Workflow

Backing generated documents up with automated approval workflows is a great way to improve efficiency. Rather than following up or constantly checking your email, approval workflows give you automated notifications to keep you on track. As we suggested above, picking a tool with document automation built-in is a must. When creating templates for your most-used documents, spend a few minutes setting up automated messages and a workflow behind your document to further automate processes and make managing approvals/notifications easier.

Maintain Document Control and Version Management

When it comes to essential documents, it’s only natural that reviewers will have edits. What gets frustrating is trying to find the most current version of a document and ensure all edits are captured. By maintaining document control, you can cut out frustrations and ensure accuracy.

Get Started with Docubee’s Document Generation Software

Document generation is a tool that can help take your business from stagnant and stressful to productive and efficient. And having a tool that pairs document generation with the power of AI and contract management automation like Docubee keeps your documents secure and customer friendly.

Try Docubee’s new AI document generator today to see how easy creating usable documents from scratch can be.