What to consider before scanning your documents
Is scanning your documents the best choice for your business? There is no doubting that document imaging offers a practical substitute to paper documents. Here are some things to consider….
Do you require the ability to view the same document simultaneously from several locations? If not, scanning a document often makes it easier to reference it; this is more of a convenience than a need. You should also think about how frequently you will access the document and how long you must keep it. A box of documents typically costs $4.00 per year to keep offsite. Depending on the type of documents, the price to scan this same box of papers can be anywhere from $125 to $200 or more.
If, after assessing your goals and retention guidelines, you decide that document imaging is right for you, a number of other things need to be taken into account:
Have you chosen the point person who will oversee your scanning project? Do they possess the necessary expertise to guarantee that each and every document is accurately scanned, indexed, and viewable? Keep in mind that a scanning and imaging process requires more than just pushing paper through a scanner. First, the papers must be sorted and ready to be scanned. This requires laborious removal of sticky notes, staples, and paper clips because a scanner cannot accept these things and removing them takes up vital time.
What system will you use to arrange your electronic data? Prior to starting any scanning project, take this into account. To find electronic data, a classification technique must be decided upon, along with field indexing. Similar to this, you must take into account a document’s information’s searchability. Will you give your end customers more granular search options, or will you require them to read through papers to get crucial information?
Have you given the effects of your data storage any thought? Do you have a system in place to manage your photographs and data that is both secure and scalable? Do you have the IT resources and organizational setup necessary to manage the backup of this vital data? Will this support be easily accessible if your systems fail? Will you require more servers or hard drives for data storage?
When all of these considerations are made, you might be hesitant to start your scanning process at all. Luckily, you may get the help you require from a reputable document scanning firm. Infoshred and Scan Optics will assist your firm in carrying out a successful scanning project in a portion of the time it would take your personnel to do so, by incorporating an experienced plan and making use of our equipment and knowledge.
Request an estimate on our website or by calling 860-627-5800 to learn more. Our experts will ask you a few questions to better understand your requirements, after which they will tell you exactly what to expect from start to finish, including the cost.
