Why you need it

Keeping records on paper has some inherent problems:

• Papers are always being misplaced or lost.
• Entering student information on paper is time consuming and the same information must be reentered on various forms, which increases the opportunities for errors.
• It is difficult to find the exact information you need it at a moment’s notice, such as needing instantaneous access to a student's attendance in response to a parent's phone call.
• Analysis of data, such as attendance trends, is time consuming, and sometimes impossible.

Paper recordkeeping has a relatively inexpensive initial cost but it has continuing operating costs due to labor, storage, and retrieval expenses:

• Paperwork requires a lot of storage space, such as for storing of years of releases, contracts, attendance records, and testing records.
• Backing up paperwork is cost and time prohibitive.
• Duplication costs of paperwork are high.
• Paperwork is costly to send to other locations, such as sending by express mail.