A document management system (DMS) is the use of technology to manage electronic documents and electronic images of paper-based documents. Document management system capabilities are often described by three simple verbs: scan, store, retrieve.
Scan: Functionality to scan paper documents and turn them either into images (such as TIFF or image-only PDFs) or into documents (typically PDFs).
Store: The core capability to serve as a storage repository for documents, as well as to classify them, provide security and audit capabilities, and enable retention and deletion as required.
Retrieve: A simple interface to provide search and retrieval capabilities.