Document Scanning Blog

Making the switch to a document scanning system is a commitment that is worth the effort in the practice of law.  Digital technology is becoming the norm in most businesses practices, and to resist moving forward can only impair the way your company functions. Paper files are becoming a way of the past and studies have established that using them wastes productive company time and resources. There are many risks associated with paper systems that digital files reduce or eliminate.

Up until recently the primary focus of document scanning and online document management has been to get medical practices and law offices into the 21^st century.  This was immediately followed by the financial and insurance industries.  Now that so many businesses are managing everything digitally, other companies may find it easier to switch to a paperless office.

 

As the American labor force becomes more accustomed to electronic documents, the use of paper in an office seems a lot more cumbersome.  Gone are the days when there was a line at the copy machine and a stack of manila folders on every worker’s desk.  Without even trying, today’s worker has gradually changed the way they manage paper documents in an office environment.

 

It’s hard to say when it happened, but at some point it become redundant to keep a file of paperwork for each client, when there was already an electronic file in existence.  It probably happened around the same time that people started “trusting computers” and realizing that their documents wouldn’t be lost in a computer crash.  IT professionals have become very adept at maintaining back-up files and ensuring the safety of network drives.  In most modern offices, client documents and important files are saved to a network drive instead of existing solely on a workers computer.  As a result, the average worker feels a lot more confident maintaining electronic document scanning without the requisite paper file. 

 

This shift has impacted various industries in different ways, but there are very few businesses that still operate in a paper-only model.  In the interest of efficiency, it appears that the American business owner is ready to follow the example of medical and legal office and embrace electronic document management solutions. 

 

Getting started with a document management solution for your office may require the help of a document scanning company.  These digital imaging professionals are the most effective way to make sure every employee is on the same page with the transition, and they can recommend the right software to securely manage employee document access.  In addition to actually document scanning and archiving your paper documents, most document scanning firms offer training for your employees. 

As an “institute for higher education”, it is impossible to imagine an admissions office without stacks of paper on every desk, and administrative offices are not far behind on the “paper trail”.  But with law offices, dental offices, hospitals and financial services businesses realizing efficiencies by going “paperless”, it seems like higher education is taking a bit longer to make the transition. One reason lag may be the fact that higher education offices are dealing with so many different external parties while also maintaining on-campus activities and all aspects of student life. 

 

Every document scanning project has to start somewhere though, and even an organization as complex as a university can find a way to eliminate mounds of unnecessary paperwork.  In a college environment, there are necessary evils, some of which may never be entirely eliminated.  These include financial aid forms, tuition bills, transcripts, contracts and order forms.  But with so many schools cutting their operating budgets, a document management program can save a university time, money and resources. 

 

For example, just the ability to implement an online tuition payment system will cut down on printing, postage and administrative time.  Sending out class schedules online and having students print them at home is another savings.  Even the application process has been digitized, and many schools have stopped accepting paper forms. 

 

With so many elements of a school’s administration going digital, it is important to have a back-end system in place to ensure the documents are accessible yet secure.  For example, a student’s personal records would have a different security level than their class schedule and syllabi.  In the admissions office, their transcript may be viewed by more administrators than their financial aid application, and so on. Implementing a full-scale document scanning management system for higher education institutions may seem like an arduous task, but the end result will be a much leaner and more efficient operation for school administrators, faculty and students.

 

These days, we don’t push paper anymore, but we do push digital files, documents, spread sheets and quotes through a series of internal and external networks. In highly confidential work environments, such as doctors’ offices and law firms, there is always a concern about maintaining control over who can access each document. As documents move through an office environment, they can be converted into PDFs, reformatted, recalculated and edited. They can also be emailed, printed, mailed and released to the public. But because each document is essentially a “corporate record” it is important to retain each one properly throughout every stage of its existence. Whether you choose to use a document scanning company or handle your document management process in-house, it is wise to come up with a company-wide protocol for the movement of digital files through corporate networks. Most companies will also want to use off-site online document storage for instant retrieval of important records from any PC. For those who choose the do-it-yourself method, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server has features that will help you implement a fully functional document management system. All aspects of the program work well with familiar applications from Microsoft Office, such as Word, Outlook and Excel. Larger organizations, and those who require more security features, should consider outsourcing their document management system to an outside vendor. Not only will this free up your employees’ time, it will also ensure that the project is managed properly, all documents are archived, and system updates are maintained on a regular basis.

Known as the process by which an image file is converted into an editable and searchable document, OCR scanning has really taken off in recent years. This is because with so many businesses switching to online document management (instead of cumbersome paper files), the need to find and edit existing documents is as important as ever. OCR, or Optical Character Recognition, OCR scanning is used for managing live documents which can be found using keyword-based or parametric searches, edited, and then retained in multiple versions on a server. This process of content manipulation can be used by law firms, archives managers, educators, museums and medical facilities, among others. It can also be translated easily into multiple languages, including HTML. OCR scanning became more widely known about ten years ago, but there are still very few standards that define OCR applications. While some software programs claim to cut down on error rates, few are capable of delivering high quality OCR-scanned documents at a reasonable price. For the thousands of businesses looking to transfer large amounts of original files into digital data, speed and accuracy are a major concern. This is mainly because the original documents need to be out of reach for the period of time it takes to have them professionally scanned and uploaded into digital files. One solution is to scan documents in segments throughout the year by a professional document scanning company who promises quick turnaround. Volume and turnaround time are the most important factors in determining the need for a professional document scanning company. In the consumer as well as the professional arena, most scanners can handle OCR imaging. If you choose to go this route, consider buying one where the software is part of the machine itself, as this seems to increase speed without sacrificing accuracy. Ultimately, turnaround time and volume will determine whether a job should be handled in-house or outsourced to a document scanning company.

A surprising and somewhat dismaying fact is that even in 2009, an alarming number of hospitals and private medical practices are mired in antiquated and often (sometimes tragically) dangerous methods of medical record storage: methods that for all intents and purposes are indistinguishable from the medical document storage practices of eighteenth century physicians. Ironically, many of these same medical practices regularly utilize cutting edge diagnostic and treatment technologies that didn’t even exist last year but somehow that same forward thinking approach to quality healthcare is absent when it comes to tracking their patients’ medical records. Why? It is difficult to say. Perhaps some healthcare providers are unaware of the new technologies involved in medical records scanning even though the “new” technologies have existed for years. Or perhaps they are aware that the digital document imaging industry exists but they are unaware of the fact that it is a substantially more secure way to store and maintain medical records. (Some healthcare providers are even under the false impression that paper records are superior to online document storage with regard to physical damage caused by fire, flood, theft, spills, misplacement, and privacy. The truth, however, is quite the opposite). Other medical practices are concerned about the cost of digitized document storage. But the fact is that the costs involved with paper storage far surpass those of digital storage and document scanning. Perhaps the biggest cost savings involved in making the switch to digitized medical record keeping is directly connected to the time wasted searching for and maintaining paper records in contrast to the simple click of a mouse needed to retrieve digitized records. Another rationale for some medical practices’ reliance upon paper records is quite similar to the explanation given by the last generation of bookkeepers that wouldn’t (or couldn’t) make the transition from paper balance sheets to computerized accounting programs: they were locked into their old ways of doing things. And now they are retired or otherwise out of a job. Similarly, some doctors are creatures of habit afraid of making the change to digital document imaging just because it is new. But as those same doctors ought to know, indeed change can be difficult but alas, it can be good for you too. Contacting a reliable and helpful document scanning company such as scantronix will aide healthcare professionals in taking the first step toward efficiency and reliability.

Captain Kirk got it right: Space indeed is the final frontier. Now perhaps document storage isn’t quite as glamorous as intergalactic travel, but nevertheless, if you are a business owner or point person in charge of your company’s document storage needs, and you are dealing with (to stay a bit too long on the sci-fi metaphor) “space and time” issues of your own, your final frontier may just turn out to be the world wide web. That is, online storage has become an increasingly more popular answer for companies that are concerned with saving time, space, and most importantly, money. The advantages of online document storage to businesses of all sizes are many. But the big three are as follows… One: Accessibility. When your data is scanned and saved online, you literally can have access to it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, with the simple click of a mouse. And you can do so from anywhere in the world. Two: Safety. One nice feature about the Internet; it doesn’t burn down or get destroyed in a flood. It’s there… permanently. Thus, your data is never going to get lost. Three: Money. When you have your hard data stored either on your own premises or at another storage space, you need to pay for hardware and storing devices. But when you store your data online, the cash you may have spent on the aforementioned budgetary line items can be spent on, well, whatever else you want! Still, there some risks with online document storage, most notably is the fact that if the online company providing you with the service is less than credible, they could go out of business and/or you data could be at risk of being stolen. So if you do decide to store your data online or through electronic document storage, make sure you choose a document scanning company with a solid track record and existing clients you can call for a reference.