The phrase "going paperless" can feel overwhelming — especially for organizations that have run IBM i for decades and built entire operations around paper-based processes. The mental image is a big disruptive project that touches everything at once.
The reality is different. IBM i shops that successfully eliminate paper don't do it all at once. They pick one document type, automate it, prove the value, and expand from there. By 2026, the tools to do this are more mature and less disruptive than ever.
Here's how it actually works.
Start With What IBM i Already Produces
The easiest paperless wins on IBM i aren't about scanning — they're about stopping the printing that was never necessary in the first place.
Every report, invoice, statement, and register your IBM i produces goes through a spool queue before it reaches a printer. That's your first opportunity. Spool file capture intercepts that output automatically, converts it to PDF, and stores it in a searchable repository — without changing anything about how your programs run.
For most IBM i shops, this single step eliminates 40–60% of their print volume. Your invoices, statements, and reports still exist — they're just digital and instantly retrievable instead of paper and buried in a cabinet.
Where to start: Pick the document type your team retrieves most often — usually customer invoices or vendor invoices. Capture those first. When staff realize they can find any invoice in under 10 seconds without leaving their desk, momentum builds quickly.
The Second Wave: Inbound Documents
Spool file capture handles everything IBM i produces. The second category is everything that comes into your organization — vendor invoices, contracts, signed agreements, HR paperwork, correspondence.
These documents arrive as paper, email attachments, or faxes. The goal is to get them into the same searchable repository as your IBM i output, indexed against the same DB2 data.
The process looks like this:
- Scanning: Paper documents go through a scanner (a standard network scanner works fine). RVI captures the scan, runs OCR to make the text searchable, and routes it for indexing.
- Email capture: Invoices and documents that arrive as email attachments can be captured directly from a monitored mailbox — no printing required.
- Drag and drop: Staff can drag files from their desktop directly into RVI from any workstation, including Windows clients connected to IBM i.
Once inbound documents are captured, they're indexed against your existing IBM i data. A vendor invoice gets linked to the vendor number, PO number, and GL codes that already exist in DB2 — making it findable the same way you'd find a natively generated document.
Routing and Approvals Without Paper
One of the stickiest paper processes in any organization is approvals. Purchase order sign-offs. Invoice authorizations. HR form reviews. These often happen on paper because there's no other mechanism — someone physically carries a document to the person who needs to sign it.
Electronic workflow and eSignature replaces this entirely. When a document is captured — an invoice, a contract, a purchase request — RVI can automatically route it to the right person based on rules you define. The approver gets a notification, reviews the document on screen, approves or rejects it with a click, and the document moves to the next step.
Every action is logged with a timestamp. You always know exactly where a document is in the approval process and who has touched it. No more "I never got that."
What About the Filing Cabinets?
Most organizations going paperless have years — sometimes decades — of paper records in filing cabinets. The question is always: do we need to scan all of it?
The honest answer is: probably not all at once, and maybe not most of it.
A practical approach is the "day forward" method: start capturing everything digitally from today. Historical paper stays in the cabinet until it's needed — at which point it gets scanned on demand and added to the repository. Over time, you'll find that 80% of the cabinet never gets touched again, and the 20% that does gets digitized naturally.
For records with active compliance or legal requirements, a targeted backfile scanning project makes sense. RVI's OCR and recognition capabilities make batch scanning faster by automatically reading and indexing document data during the scan process.
Storage: Where Do the Documents Live?
One concern that comes up consistently is storage. Thousands of PDFs add up. Where do they go?
RVI supports multiple storage options depending on your infrastructure:
- On-premises: Documents stored on your own servers, under your IT team's control. Works well for organizations with data residency requirements or existing storage infrastructure.
- Cloud: Documents stored in RVI's secure hosted environment with dual data centers. No hardware to manage, automatic backups, accessible from anywhere.
- Hybrid: Active documents in the cloud, archived documents on-premises — or vice versa. RVI handles the tiering automatically.
All three options integrate directly with IBM i. The platform your documents are stored on doesn't change how users access them.
How Long Does It Take?
A realistic timeline for an IBM i shop going paperless looks like this:
- Week 1–2: Install RVI, configure output queue monitoring, begin capturing spool files automatically
- Week 3–4: Train staff on document retrieval, see immediate reduction in print volume
- Month 2–3: Add inbound document capture (scanning, email)
- Month 3–6: Implement approval workflows for high-volume document types
- Ongoing: Expand to additional document types, backfile scan historical records on demand
Most customers are capturing IBM i spool files automatically within the first week. The rest of the paperless journey happens in stages, at a pace that fits your organization.
The Bottom Line
Going paperless on IBM i is not a single project — it's a direction. You pick a starting point, demonstrate value, and expand. The IBM i platform makes it easier than most environments because so much of your document output already flows through a central queue that can be intercepted and captured automatically.
RVI has been doing this for IBM i shops since 1991. If you're ready to see what a paperless workflow looks like for your specific environment, we're happy to show you.
Ready to Go Paperless on IBM i?
Schedule a demo and we'll walk through your specific document types, volume, and workflow — and show you exactly what a paperless IBM i environment looks like in practice.
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