It’s hard to articulate exactly what your office needs when it comes to enterprise solutions. The language and terms aren’t common knowledge the way they are for personal software. All you know is that it has to work, it can’t violate any regulations, and it’s got to be cheap, right?

We see a lot of public sector, distribution, manufacturing, and non-profit organizations express these concerns when shopping around. Software as a Product (SaaP) is their best bet, and it might be yours too. SaaP means that you buy the solution once, paying for it up front, and then you own it forever. You don’t have to pay each month to “rent” your software and access your files.

Software as a Product is the same as perpetual licensing if you’ve heard of that. Remember when you used to be able to go to the store and buy software off the shelf in a box? Same thing but no unnecessary cardboard to recycle. You often have more flexibility with this model, which can help you meet regulations. And the best part? SaaP can be significantly cheaper in the long run.

Budget needs come first

This isn’t always the case, but we’re sure you’ve seen how expensive a subscription service can be. Oh, you haven’t? Well, most subscriptions go up in price every year or every other year to keep up with inflation. Assuming no other fees, an annual $3 or $5 bump can still amount to a high cost over time. Before you know it prices have doubled! You’re better off seeking out subscriptions with loyalty discounts…or going with Software as a Product.

Perpetual licensing is one upfront payment. Any recurring costs would be for support services (including regular software updates and new features) or cloud hosting. If you host on your own servers, you can save even more cash. We know that non-profit and government budgets can be strict, and summing your costs up into a one-time payment and then just annual upkeep should help with that. There’s more to running these organizations though. Like regulatory compliance.

Keeping up with regulations

If you manage a warehouse storing and moving food products, how much paperwork do you need to go through every time you accept, store, and send out a shipment? What if you work in education and need to maintain decades of student records with restricted access protocols?

Compliance can be notably easier when you own your software. Hosting locally offline meets many regulatory requirements for government institutions right off the bat. Most subscription-based software and storage is hosted in the cloud.

This doesn’t mean that you can never access your local files from afar. Your systems administrator could set up a VPN (virtual private network). Once you sign into the VPN, you can securely interact with your document management system, including uploading, sharing, and organizing files. Your team can manage business processes from home and still do it all via a web app.

Data security

There is no question that hosting locally offers more document control. Perpetual licensing means you decide where to install your document management software but also allows you to make decisions about it that other payment models often don’t. Such as choosing secure hosting providers and considering multi-tenancy, picking who has access to your files apart from your staff, and how data security is handled.

If you have to discontinue support services, you don’t lose access to your files. If you want to limit your exposure to security threats, that is entirely up to you. Not every organization has the IT bandwidth to handle all of this themselves; those that do can enjoy the benefits of a totally curated file management experience with safe storage they’ve vetted themselves.

Document management as a product can include contract management options. Sensitive files shared securely with outside parties never leave the system, doubling down on that document control. Integrate your DocuSign account or create a custom eSignature. Then have freshly signed contracts enter the workflow system so that everyone in the loop can review them and get a jump on next steps.

Software as a Product

You are probably looking for a BPM tool or process management, and your needs aren’t at all simple or straightforward. Not a lot of software sellers offer both options – buying or subscribing. Customizability and flexible implementation round out a mission to get you document management that’s right for your industry, your organization, and for you.