Document Scanning: What are your options?

Document Scanning: What are your options?

Are you considering keeping your document scanning project in-house? It can certainly be done, but entails a lot of thought, planning, and consideration to assure success without disrupting your entire office environment in the process.

Document scanning requires training and quality control to produce suitable electronic images. Are you up to the task? An error rate of 0.1% means one page in every 1,000 could be missing or unreadable, and that is totally unacceptable. Data entry must also be accurate to ensure the record can be located and accessed after it has been scanned.

The Do-Your-Own Document Scanning Option

Many organizations successfully use in-house staff to prepare and scan paper documents. The project will need staff to prepare and scan the files as well as a workspace to allow an efficient assembly-line process.

It is very important to carefully choose personnel for this project. Not everyone is detail-oriented enough to perform the repetitive, tedious task of removing staples and organizing pages. Nor does everyone recognize the importance of consistently capturing every piece of information in the file. Every scanned image needs to go through a QA process to view, check against the original, and approve.

For higher volumes, your project will require a scanner fast enough to handle several thousand pages per day. While office scanners rated at 20-30 images per minute may work well on a go-forward basis, they are not robust enough to efficiently handle the initial work of scanning a large back filing of documents. Whatever savings there may be in purchasing an inadequate scanner will be lost in the hours it will take to complete the project.

At a minimum, when purchasing a scanner, look for built-in fail-safe features to guard against more than one page feeding through at a time. Additionally, scanning software should support scanning documents into multiple-page PDF,JPG, or TIFF files that can be named in an organized, logical structure.

Not all image software produces the same results. Some have more file compression and data extraction capabilities than others. Electronic file size can be an issue depending if you store data internally, on a server, or use a web-hosted system. Date extraction enhances the filing and indexing of scanned documents. Software provided with a multi-function equipment (all-in-one copier/scanner/fax) is typically very limited is its capabilities.

eBizDocs can help you get started with purchasing the right scanner for the job and the software and storage solution that fits your needs.

The Outsourcing Option

While the do-it-yourself option can work for some, there are potentially more efficient ways to convert documents from paper to digital. Outsourcing is a popular option that decreases the overall time required to complete the project and greatly reduces the stress on office staff.

eBizDocs operates under strict confidentiality. All personnel who handle your documents are trained to protect privacy and your confidentiality is strictly enforced. Records are also meticulously logged and tracked while being transported to eBizDocs’ facility for processing.

The eBizDocs production scanning environment has a dedicated team. The prep team is trained to efficiently remove all staples and paper clips, position sticky notes, and unfold, smooth, and aligns all pages. Skilled scanner operators, using high-speed equipment, evaluate every scanned image on the computer screen ensuring maximum quality assurance. Next, images are correctly labeled/indexed.

Consider outsourcing the scanning of your records to eBizDocs, a competent imaging service, when weighing the pros and cons of scanning internally vs. outsourcing your project. The cost of outsourced scanning is often significantly less than the total expenditure of allocating sufficient space, purchasing adequate equipment, and using your staff to perform the work.

eBizDocs specializes in performing the “grunt work” associated with scanning and can have all records prepared, scanned, indexed, and uploaded in a fraction of the time it takes for persons with little or no experience in scanning large volumes of documents.

Having all back file records digitized at one time can streamline the implementation of electronic records management, allowing your organization to make the transition without the confusion created by having some files in paper and others electronic for an extended period of time.

What’s next?

While the transition to electronic records is a major shift requiring buy-in from your entire staff, it can be accomplished far more easily if day-to-day operations are allowed to proceed as usual, with as little disruption as possible. Outsourcing document preparation, scanning, and indexing to eBizDocs (who specializes in these tasks) eliminates the need to distract staff from their usual responsibilities. The end result is a smoother, less stressful transition and quicker implementation, at a price that is often less than the cost of using your own employees to perform the project.

Regardless of deciding to outsource or keep your scanning in house, eBizDocs is here to help you Put INFORMATION at Your Fingertips.

Take the next step by starting a fact finding, no obligation, conversation with eBizDocs about your scanning goals and objectives.