Imaging (Scanning) vs. Digitizing: Learn the Differences

September 06, 2022 | 7:02 am
Written by: Brandon Harris

Organizations are hastening digital reforms, swiftly embracing digital projects. However, finding the best methods, strategies, and tools for digital solutions takes time and effort. You have to sift through an encyclopedia’s worth of terminology and learn the difference between different digital methods, such as imaging and digitizing.

Going digital may seem simple, but before you hire document imaging services, you must understand the difference between different alternatives. It will allow you to choose between document imaging solutions and digitizing options to meet your needs effectively.

So, do you know what scanning and imaging entail and how these alternatives can help your business? This blog will highlight the distinctions between the two to help you make the best decision.

Document Imaging VS Digitizing

Document imaging and document digitizing are not the same, although both involve transforming paper documents into digital ones. They refer to distinct procedures.

  • Document Imaging Solution: When a document is scanned, a picture of the document is obtained and turned into a digital file. This process is also known as “document imaging.” Text is legible to humans but not to computers. Therefore, machines and software are unable to interpret the metadata.
  • Document Digitizing: Digitization takes scanning to the next level. It involves converting the scanned image into editable data. When digitizing a document, its data is more accessible and may be altered in many ways, such as by being indexed for easier retrieval.

Imaging or Digitizing: Which One Is Right For You?

While both methods produce digital documents, only digitization can provide editable copies. Let’s analyze the implications of both the procedures for your company.

What You Need to Know about Imaging

Imaging may be a great solution if you are looking for a quick way to reduce your waiting time. Once papers have been scanned and converted, they are much simpler to retrieve because there is no longer a need to file and re-file copies of documents physically. Your employees will spend less time searching and retrieving information.

Cutting down on paper use and switching to digital also leads to savings. You may save money on file storage by scanning your papers beforehand. In addition to facilitating faster and cheaper operations, document imaging solutions also increases the safety of the material.

As an additional area where paper falls short, we have to consider the increasingly vital role of the customer experience in modern business. A company that adopts a digital content strategy can better focus on its customers’ needs. Customers in today’s constantly connected digital environment need top-notch assistance that is provided instantly. This is true for both public and private institutions.

Information on paper is vulnerable. Anybody can retrieve it at any moment. Once you scan your files, you’ll have far more control over who can access them. Plus, information recorded on paper degrades with each manual handling. You can safely archive your most crucial records for years.

What You Need to Know about Digitizing

Digitizing is the next step of imaging, which means it provides all the benefits of imaging in addition to other unique advantages. Optical character recognition (OCR) and automatic customer retention tracking are two examples of how digitization enhances information usefulness.

OCR is a scanning technology that takes handwritten or printed text and transforms it into editable, machine-encoded text. This text can then be manipulated as required. Secondly, the time it takes to access and use the material will also reduce once the documents are digitized because the information may be changed, sorted, and searched more easily.

Metadata capture information about your material that helps you organize and find it later. Due to this, digitization further raises the value of your content. Digitalization also offers enhanced security and confidentiality.

Knowing who had accessed your documents, when they were accessed, and how they were used may greatly simplify your efforts to meet privacy regulations. A digital system provides a trustworthy, traceable audit trail.

Choose the Right Document Imaging Services for Your Business!

Paper is insufficient when you need to access and process data rapidly, securely, and remotely. Therefore, getting document imaging is a must for every business. Whether you opt for digitizing or not, document imaging solutions are the first step in making the digital transition.

However, success requires an all-encompassing approach to managing data. This requires you to work with reputable document imaging services that understand the ins and outs of scanning and digitizing and can provide you with the best services at the best prices.

If you are looking for an experienced document imaging service, consider Smooth Solutions. In addition to helping your company save money and comply with applicable laws, their digital methods will boost the efficiency with which you manage information in your organization.

5 Benefits of Document Conversion Services to Your Business

August 10, 2022 | 2:20 am
Written by: Brandon Harris

As your business grows from a small start-up to a well-established organization, you are bound to end up with vast collections of paperwork. This paperwork is usually stockpiled in filing cabinets and storage rooms, never to be seen again. However, should the need to view certain documents arise, it can be quite a challenge to find what you’re looking for.

The best way to ensure well-organized and stored paperwork for your business is by opting for document conversion services. These services digitize your documents into PDF files or any other format that you request, making it incredibly easy to access, store, and protect your essential paperwork. Here are some more benefits of document conversion and scanning services.

Benefits of Document Conversion Services

Ensures Compliance

Most industries demand the need for extensive piles of paperwork. From storing medical records to financial statements, work order details, and employee records, you are bound to have huge amounts of documents to keep in order to meet the compliance standards of your industry.

Not only is it a nightmare to organize all of this paperwork and ensure it is reachable when the need arises, but it also adds hefty storage costs to your quarterly budget. Why not convert your paperwork into a format that is easy to store and even easier to find? When you digitize your documents, you can ensure effective compliance with your industry requirements and standards without adding yet another storage cabinet to your office.

Reduces Waste

Once your important documents have been digitized, you get the opportunity to set up a documents automation system in your organization. Document automation systems offer businesses a great way to improve their ROI, something that usually isn’t possible with manual paperwork and data processing. It saves you a significant amount of time, money, effort, and expensive resources.

Without hard copy document management in your company, your staff is freed to carry out more productive tasks that contribute to the growth of your business. You can also help your business become more eco-friendly through document digitization, as you will be using up lesser amounts of paper. This reduced paper trail lowers printing costs, and more productive staff comes together to put your business on the path to constant growth and success.

Quick Retrieval

Retrieving hard copies of documents requires your staff to manually go through endless drawers and folders of paperwork. A task that shouldn’t require more than a few seconds can easily take hours as your staff members move from one filing cabinet to the next in hopes of finding the required documents. Not only is this retrieval process tedious and time-consuming, but it is also quite inefficient.

The best way to ensure quick retrieval of important paperwork is by digitizing it. Once your documents are on a computer system, all you need to do is use the search bar to retrieve them in a fraction of a second.

Organized Storage

When you use bulk document scanning services for your business, it allows you to store all of your important paperwork in well-organized storage space. Storing electronic documents is far easier than having files upon files of paperwork. Physical documents also require you to invest in expensive filing cabinets and drawers to store all of the hefty folders.

Instead of having physical filing cabinets that take up nearly half of your office space (or require a separate storage room!), you can instead save documents electronically. All you need to do is hire reliable document scanning services like Smooth Solutions to digitize important documents for your business.

Once done, you can store your documents in properly organized folders on your network or even over a cloud storage system. Having digitized files also allows you to control who has access to sensitive documents, ensuring that only the right people can view and edit the documents as needed.

Enhanced Safety

Scanned, digitized documents allow you to enhance the safety of the records you keep. This is especially important if your paperwork consists of sensitive information and data that could risk someone’s privacy. By keeping digital copies of the documents, you won’t have to worry about break-ins or unauthorized staff gaining access to the paperwork. This is because digital files allow you impeccable control over who can view and edit the files.

You can further install high-security software and protocols to add an advanced layer of security to your essential documents.

How to Go Digital with Your Documents

Ready to enjoy all of the benefits of digitalizing your documents? Smooth Solutions makes it incredibly easy by offering document conversion services at budget-friendly prices. Through our services, you can enjoy the expert scanning and digitization of your documents with the best scanning equipment in the market, along with a streamlined workflow process. Our highly skilled project managers ensure a smooth scanning process and offer you top-notch customer services for a great experience with us!

Latest Trends In Enterprise Content Management – 2022

June 30, 2022 | 7:06 pm
Written by: Brandon Harris

ECM software  is a tool businesses can leverage to effectively manage their content and company’s documents. With enterprise content management, businesses can make their data accessible across the board to facilitate collaboration and business agility while keeping it secure and preventing downtime.

Large enterprises to small businesses are all wondering how to store, organize, and present their seemingly endless data. According to IDC , global data creation and replication will continue to experience compounded annual growth and reach 181 zettabytes in 2025!

Businesses are actively employing document conversion services to save their data on the cloud. It’s also why ECM tools are now a critical element in supporting businesses to protect, modernize, and organize their data. It has led ECM providers to innovate their tech to empower organizations through their software. 

So, if you’re thinking of updating your ECM tool or using it to reshape the data landscape, you need to stay up-to-date on the following enterprise content management trends:

Enhanced Software Usability to Ensure Employee Engagement 

The first step to ensuring that your employees are able to adapt software and use a tool seamlessly is to ensure its easy usability. Over the past few years, ECM providers have worked greatly on improving their software usability. Businesses look for ECM services that can help them realize their cost and productivity saving.

Whether a business requires document conversion services, scanning services, or fully-functional ECM software, they need their investment to be easy to implement and use in the long term. 

Today, you should look for ECM solutions with an intuitive interface, pre-configured templates, drag-and-drop UI capabilities, easy-to-use forms, and more. You should also choose a solution with customized packages to suit your distinct workflows and needs. Look for tools that offer context searching, use metadata, and provide access to data from a single app. 

Business Agility Supported by a Hybrid Solution 

If you need to stay on top of your game and become agile, you will need to access your data swiftly and effectively from anywhere and at any time. An enterprise content management system and cloud computing enable you to do just that. However, significant work is done on-premise, and as the digital landscape continues to evolve, businesses will need to move to the cloud. 

Today, many successful businesses are adopting a hybrid approach to modernize their IT infrastructure and benefit from their content-centric tools. So, you will need to go through a phased transition and adopt an ECM solution that supports a hybrid environment to ensure smooth business scalability and flexibility. 

Workplace Mobility

Providing your employees with business mobility can enable you to increase their productivity and engagement. Giving your employees access to data and organizational workflows through a mobile setup will help you get the most out of them while providing them with the comfort of working from anywhere, anytime they can. 

After all, since COVID-19, businesses have adopted a hybrid working model that promotes work-from-home and working on mobile tools and devices. The helpful combination of ECM software and mobility will enable you to promote remote work and help your employees stay connected to your business processes, data, and each other. 

The Era of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence 

Enterprise content management can benefit greatly from the advancements in artificial technology and machine learning. Applying ML and AI to content is helping companies increase productivity and reduce human errors. These technologies can effectively help you extract insight from unstructured data, distribute organizational orders up, across, and down different databases, and accelerate your business processes. 

When applied to data, ML and AI can fuel the following ECM-related features:

  • Artificial intelligence and machine learning can quicken the process of organizing all types of data, such as texts and images, into digital forms. You can also employ document conversion services to help you make the process easier. 

  • With AI and ML, your ECM system can learn to index documents automatically to initiate independent workflows.

  • Artificial intelligence and machine learning can enable natural language processing, which contributes to data indexing as software analyzes the spoken and written words, taking syntax and semantics into consideration. It enables you to find information easily.

  •  ML and AI enable self-learning to ensure that the software can search and organize relevant items and terms together.

  • These technologies help enable and support regulatory mandates through automated governance by handling data according to specific parameters rooted in compliance requirements, such as OSHA, HIPAA< GDPR, and more. 

The Bottom Line

New and advanced developments related to ECM tools and solutions are welcoming an exciting era of endless possibilities for businesses to automate and modernize their data organization, storage, access, and use. By following the above-mentioned ECM trends and working with a reputable ECM provider and document scanning company, you can quickly shift your data to the digital landscape for improved business agility. 

Let Smooth Solutions help you with its seamless data conversion services and custom ECM solutions today!

 

How Can Scanning Medical Records Improve Efficiency In Providing Healthcare?

July 27, 2021 | 6:37 am
Written by: Brandon Harris

Digitization is a global trend that encompasses all the major industries. So it’s not surprising that the need to digitize has become an important goal for medical facilities as well.

But while many of the benefits of medical document scanning and digitization are associated with improved processes, reduced costs, and overall efficiency, they can also significantly impact the level of health care that the hospital can provide for its patients. 

In this article, let’s explore the relationship between medical records scanning and improved patient care. We’ll also look at why it makes sense to hire professional medical record scanning services that can make the transition less disruptive and more effective.

More Information

A big part of treating a patient is knowing as much as possible about their medical history. But no matter how seemingly efficient a paper medical record system might be, it simply can’t compare to the possibilities offered by digital records. 

Electronic medical records can be a vital tool for tracking chronic diseases, seeing how various health tests reflect a person’s health over time, and ensuring that the doctor has every bit of information they might need to provide the best care possible to each patient.

With an electronic system, it’s possible to set up alerts for both the doctor and the patient, informing them of important dates and regular check-up needs, reducing manual work, and ensuring that patients don’t slip through the cracks.

What’s more, having a convenient way to look at data at scale enables health facilities to gain insights into the overall health of patients in various groups. This can be incredibly helpful for medical research, providing possibilities for improving treatment options and preventing various illnesses before they can develop.

Better Efficiency

Dealing with patients takes time. But unfortunately, many medical professionals end up spending most of the time filing documents instead of actually helping the patient. And that can result in worse outcomes for people who need help.

But if you use medical record scanning services, you can streamline and automate various processes involved with data entry, implementing a simpler process for compiling patient histories that takes much less time.

By being able to quickly type in information and access the entire patient history with just a few clicks, the medical professional is equipped to get to know the patient’s situation on a deeper level and consider all critical aspects in any situation. 

Because of that, the overall quality of the decisions being made is improved, which can result in significantly better outcomes for patients over the long term.

Data Security

Patient data is highly sensitive and needs to be protected at all costs. But no matter how well your paper medical record system might be working, it can never match the security and risk mitigation potential of digital records.

If you use reputable medical record scanning services, they can provide you not only with a process for digitization but also with state-of-the-art document management and security solutions, which will prevent documents from getting lost or misplaced.

When everything is in a single digital database, it’s much easier to control who has access, and there’s virtually no chance of documents getting lost. What’s more, because you can utilize modern security features, the risk of sensitive data falling into the wrong hands is minimized as well.

Reduce Costs

Finally, when you embrace medical records scanning, you can end up saving a lot of money by reducing overhead costs and simplifying the processes for managing a large paper document storage facility.

Sure, the initial investment into medical document scanning can be daunting, but if you choose a reputable provider, they can provide you with a reduced bulk scanning rate that makes it more affordable. And once the scanning process is done, you can go digital and reap significant savings that will carry over for as long as the medical facility is open. 

The storage in itself can account for significant savings, allowing you to repurpose current facilities and expand the type of care you can provide for patients and staff.

Why You Should Hire a Professional Medical Records Scanning Company

At this point, it should be clear that embracing digital records practices is the right choice for almost any medical facility. But for the process to be easy, painless, and effective, you need to find the right scanning services provider that knows the common challenges that are likely to arise and can deal with them effectively.

When you find a provider that has dealt with medical records scanning before, they can help you stay compliant with HIPAA and provide you with the best Electronic Medical Record (EMR) or Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems that will help make the transition easy and convenient for your staff.

11 Benefits of Digitizing Your Documents, Especially During the Remote Work Era

June 24, 2021 | 3:25 pm
Written by: Brandon Harris

In 2020, many business owners realized they could remain productive while allowing employees to work from home, which in turn increased employee satisfaction, mental health, and work-life balance.

For some, this was an easy transition but for others, it was trickier. Some industries had to outfit their employees’ home offices with expensive technology and supplies, while some others just had to ensure their employees had a laptop and a stable internet connection.

This seems to be the way of the future, so for many business owners, it’s time to think about how to make this a productive, long-term situation, rather than a quick fix that was born out of necessity. One way to make remote work easier for employees and managers alike is by digitizing important company documents.

Here are 11 reasons why going digital with your business documents is best for you, your employees, the environment, and honestly, for your documents as well.

 

1. It’s Easy To Do

No matter how large or small your business may be, the idea of taking all of your business documents and creating a digital copy of them can seem daunting at best. Luckily, you can enlist the help of a document scanning service to do the work for you.

Place your precious documents under the care of practiced experts who will treat your documents with the care and respect they deserve. Best of all, if you have items that can’t leave your premises, we have experts who can come to you. Precision, security, and integrity remain our priorities whether we’re operating in our space or yours.

 

2. It’s Digitally Secure

When you hire a document scanning company, research how safe and encrypted your information will be in their hands. Considering anything from technical manuals to large format blueprints can be digitized, it’s important to know that your information will be secure.

Not only does the cloud storage need to be kept encrypted, but the physical premises should be secure as well, with adequate surveillance and alarm systems.

 

3. It’s Physically Secure

Beyond being safe from uninvited eyes, having a digital backup of your documents is secure in other ways. By digitizing, you literally have a backup copy of anything you need. If something unfortunate were to happen at your physical location and you suddenly lost your database of microfilm, treasured photos, or even books and newspapers, you’d be grateful you had the foresight to create a digital backup in case of emergencies.

 

4. It Keeps Everyone Organized

While most or all of your employees are working remotely, gone are the days where one can just walk to the file cabinet to check for something. Having a digital database where employees can find what they need will make working from home far easier for them.

Additionally, if everything is stored digitally, you no longer have to worry about someone returning a document to the wrong place, or worse, not returning it at all.

 

5. It Makes Sharing Easier

For businesses that require a lot of sharing of information, digitizing your database will make life much easier. If you can cut out the need for a courier or a messenger and can share information with the click of a button, you’ll save money and your productivity will benefit greatly.

Not only can a business lose precious time in transport, but information can also be damaged or even compromised on the way to its destination. With digital versions of your documents, your recipient gets instant access to uncompromised information.

 

6. It May Open Up More Opportunities For Remote Work

If your business has yet to transition to remote work because it’s too important for employees to be close to the information they’re using, going digital may be the answer you and your employees are looking for.

Any information such as books, movies, magazines, microfiche, and plain old papers can be digitized. While remote work may not be for everyone, giving your employees the option to work from home safely, securely, and efficiently shows that you care about them and value their preferences.

 

7. It Saves You Money

Imagine a disc, and then imagine a file cabinet. A simple CD or DVD can hold the same amount of information as dozens of file cabinets. By digitizing your documents, you can save incredible amounts of valuable space. Saving space can also save you money if you currently own or are renting a property to hold these documents.

As remote work becomes the new way of life, companies will no longer need to house all of their information in an office building. Instead, the information can live on a server, a disc, or in a cloud while the business owner sells off the property and maybe even the file cabinets for a profit.

 

8. It’s Searchable

This benefit applies regardless of whether your employees are working remotely or working in the office. It’s far easier to search through digital documents than it is to search through books, old magazines, or a pile of large-format maps. This is another productivity booster, as employees will no longer need to spend hours rifling through old papers when they can simply perform a keyword search on your cloud server.

 

9. It’s Safe From Deterioration

Your company may have documents that just won’t stand the test of time. Over time, film degrades, newspapers fade and the handwriting on documents seems to disappear. By digitizing these items, you’re essentially freezing them in time.

Once they’re digitally preserved, they can be reviewed and enjoyed by generations to come. If your company has documents in its possession that could be considered antiques at this point, making a digital copy is of paramount importance. If the documents are lost to time, that important, historical information is lost as well.

 

10. It’s Environmentally Friendly

Once a company has used a document scanning service, they’re more likely to continue the digital trend moving forward. This, in turn, benefits the environment as you’re less likely to be using paper and other resources. Using copious amounts of paper is no favor to the environment, so by going digital you are greatly reducing your company’s carbon footprint. As a bonus, you’ll be saving money while you save trees!

 

11. It Keeps Everyone Happy

Remote work can have its ups and downs. One of the downsides of working from home is not having all of the resources at your fingertips that you might have at the office. On the other hand, working remotely can be difficult for leaders and managers, as they have to supply such information.

By digitizing your information, your employees benefit from access to whatever they need without having to go through various channels. This keeps employees more productive, and it even keeps managers and information keepers more productive too, as they no longer have to stop what they’re doing to track something down.ing of information, digitizing your database will make life much easier. If you can cut out the need for a courier or a messenger and can share information with the click of a button, you’ll save 

The new normal of remote work has required a lot of adaptation and compromise by companies and employees alike. Considering how important employee retention is to a company, it’s in the company’s best interest to work remotely as easily and as comfortably as possible.

By enlisting the expertise of a document scanning company, you’re allowing resources to be more easily accessed so your employees can do the best work possible.

Why Is It Important To Digitize Medical Records

May 31, 2021 | 3:58 pm
Written by: Brandon Harris

In the medical field, there is an abundance of documents and important information that must be organized, stored, and most of all protected. There is nothing worse than losing a patient’s documents to theft or disaster, and trying to recover that information can be almost impossible.

Thankfully technology today allows you to digitize medical records to make your practice more efficient and protect your patients’ information.

Streamline Your Practice

Medical records scanning makes it possible for you to save time, space, and money. Finding paper documents can be quite a chore and takes up a lot of time if they are misplaced.

Digital documents always stay organized and can be quickly and easily found with a simple keyword search. Digital storage also allows you to cut down on wasting space with the great wall of filing cabinets.

In fact, you could replace 30 filing cabinets with just one storage disk. Last but certainly not least, cut down on expenses and go green by saying no to costly photo-copying. Medical document scanning allows you to distribute important documents to your team digitally in an instant.

Protect Patient Information

Paper documents are fragile and can be damaged beyond repair in several ways, meaning important information could be lost forever. Digitize medical records to protect your patient files from being lost in accidents such as fire or flood water. The only thing worse than losing patient information is having it stolen.

Storing digital records in a secure, offsite location minimizes the risk of theft. Additionally, paper documents are subject to deterioration over time. Digitizing these documents ensures they are kept safe for years to come.

Trust in HIPAA Compliance

Doctor-patient confidentiality is sacred, and so you must trust your documents are safe and secure. When selecting a medical document scanning service look for security measures that go above and beyond to protect your patients and your practice such as:

 

– Alarm systems to protect from fire and theft
– Around the clock video surveillance
– Keycard restricted access for authorized personnel
– Staff training in HIPAA compliance
– Non-disclosure agreements covering private information
– On-site scanning so the original copies never leave your sight.

 

With these security measures in place, you can rest easy at night knowing your patients’ information, and thus your practice is protected. Medical records scanning sets a new standard for security and accessibility. It is an absolute must for any medical practice to stay competitive in an increasingly digital world.

Digitizing your records will set your practice apart from competitors with better organization, faster distribution for immediate care, and top-notch security that you and your patients can believe in.

Don’t wait to digitize, because accidents can happen anytime, anyplace. Protect your practice and your patients today.

4 Tips to Improve Pharmaceutical Document Management: A Step-by-Step Guide

March 16, 2021 | 6:47 am
Written by: Brandon Harris

Effective document management practices are essential for any company. But for pharmaceutical companies, where the security and accuracy of documents are crucial, this holds even more true.

That’s why companies in the pharma industry are always striving to improve their processes and keep in line with the most recent development in document management technology.

Whether it’s for saving time, helping employees become more efficient, reducing expenses, or increasing security, the benefits that a sound system can offer are hard to underestimate. 

With that in mind, let’s look at some of the most important tips you should consider when implementing better document management practices in your pharmaceutical organization. 

Digitize Your Documents

The only way to ensure that your document management practices are up to the standards of the pharmaceutical industry is to switch to a digital document management system. 

Using paper documents might have been acceptable a decade or two ago, but today, with specialized document management solutions more available than ever before, it is simply not a feasible solution any longer. 

The good news is that it’s now also easier than ever to digitize your paper documents and transfer them to a digital format. You can find a document scanning solution ideally suited for pharma companies, which will take over the entire process and will make the transition as smooth and frictionless as possible.

Having a digital document management system not only makes sense from a storage standpoint. It will also help with security, access, and budgeting.

Consider Your Access Strategy

One of the biggest concerns regarding is the need to ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive documents and data. But at the same time, the modern workplace environment dictates that access must be possible from anywhere in the world, not just the company’s headquarters.

That’s why one of the most important considerations you should think about is the way you want to handle access control. 

One of the most popular approaches is to use a Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) document management system, which can limit the number of files that can be accessed based on the person’s authorization level. 

With the help of this approach, you should be able to set specific rules about who can access the files and avoid having to grant access manually.

Prioritize Searchability

One of the biggest challenges your employees likely face is finding specific documents or even certain information within documents.

In these situations, having advanced document searchability is essential. Look for a solution that can provide accurate search results, offer numerous filters to sort documents by, and help search for documents in various formats. 

Ease of Use

Finally, you must look for a solution that is easy to use and manage. You want the staff to implement it without resistance, and thus it should have a simple-to-use interface that’s intuitive and clear. 

After all, even the most advanced pharmaceutical document management system is only as effective as it is used. When you opt for complex features, make sure you communicate them to your team clearly so that they know how to make the most out of what the solution has to offer.

How to Scan & Convert Your Books to PDF Files

December 24, 2020 | 10:46 am
Written by: Michael Harris

Storing paper books can be very cumbersome, especially if you have a large collection. Obviously, large book collections take up a lot of office space, and no matter how sophisticated your storage facility may be, there’s no way to guarantee that your books won’t succumb to wear or get damaged.

What’s more, finding specific pages or documents within a large book collection can take a very long time. Converting books to PDF files can solve these problems and more.

But how can you convert your books to PDF files? And what are the benefits of professional book scanning when compared to doing it yourself? 
Going through and digitizing books containing records, documents, historical texts, lab notebooks or manuals can seem like a daunting task, especially for organizations that don’t have enough resources as it is.

However, there are methods for book and large format document scanning that can help you get on track to convert all of your books to digital format.

Here are a few things you could try to get started.

SCAN A BOOK USING A MOBILE DEVICE

The simplest way to scan book pages and turn them into a digital file is by using your mobile device. Today, there are plenty of free apps that allow you to scan the book page by page and then collect it into a single digital file.

This process can work great if you just need to share a few dozen pages with your colleagues – in a few minutes, you can have a ready to send digital file instead of having to do everything with a physical scanner.

However, this method has its limitations.

For one thing, imagine scanning books to PDF when you have to go through dozens or even hundreds or large books. Flipping through page after page and scanning with your mobile device each time will get boring quickly, and the entire project might take weeks of rigorous, boring, and tiring work to complete. 

No one can be expected to take this much time scanning their books, and you would find yourself looking for how to scan a book to PDF approaches that are less demanding before you even got through the first one. 

Sure, this method can work if you don’t need too many pages (or you have an endless number of hours to waste), but for most people, it just won’t work.

And that’s not even considering that the quality of this approach won’t be great, either. Scanning with your phone’s camera won’t reproduce the detail of the pages very well, so the text and the images won’t be very zoomable, becoming blurry whenever you try to get a bit more detail.

So, while it’s cool that our phones can serve as scanners, it’s definitely not the best way to scan a book to PDF. Let’s look at some of the other options that you might want to consider. 

DE-BINDING A BOOK FOR SCANNING

If you have a multi-function printer in your office, it could technically be used to scan your books and save you the trouble of having to purchase specialized book scanning equipment. The only problem is, this method will require you to cut or unbind the books so that the pages can lay flat on a scanning bed or be sheet fed.

For this method, you will need to carefully remove the bindings on each book and remove the pages without damaging them. Then, once you have de-bound a book and have it in separate pages, you can simply use your scanner as you would when scanning a document.

Obviously, this process will take a lot of time since you’ll need to do everything manually, page by page, but it will at least produce higher-quality images than using your phone.

Once you have each page scanned, you’ll need to crop and edit the scans to ensure that they’re consistent and then use software to sequence them into a single PDF file.

If you have dozens or even hundreds of books that need to be digitized, this process can take a very long time, so it’s not really recommended unless you only need to scan a few books.

Just as with the phone method, you would have to spend multiple days or even weeks when digitizing your book collection, with the added time that would be wasted by having to de-bind the books before scanning them. 

The fact remains that without a specialized scanner, doing your own book scans becomes very problematic and not something that most people would be willing to go through just because of the time commitment that it would involve.

And with this method, you would also have to deal with the fact that your books would likely be ruined after you scan them. Even if you don’t plan on using them again, this is pretty wasteful and not something that most people would want to do. 

Because of that, there’s only one method that really makes sense if you want to enjoy the benefits of having a digital book collection without having to waste so much time doing everything on your own. 

USE PROFESSIONAL DOCUMENT SCANNING SERVICES

For large-scale projects, the hands-down best option is to hire professionals that specialize in digitizing books. There are countless benefits of professional book scanning which you couldn’t get any other way, at least not without investing thousands of dollars into equipment that you would probably end up using only once or twice. 

For one thing, they have the equipment and the expertise necessary to scan hundreds of books in a reasonable amount of time while ensuring that the digitized version of the books is of good quality and that your printed books remain intact.

Scanning services providers have specialized book scanners that allow them to scan a book to PDF without damaging them and without losing any quality. These book scanners use specially-designed V-shaped cradles and a high-quality camera to capture each image from above while making corrections to the images to account for the curvature of the book’s spine.

Some book scanning service providers even have automatic page-turning scanners, which utilize a robotic suction arm to turn each page, eliminating the need to manually handle the books. This is especially important when dealing with fragile texts.

And then you have the quality aspect, which also cannot be overstated. The PDF files that you’ll get will be high-resolution and crisp quality, which means that you can zoom in and look at the files in whatever magnification that you need. 

These types of services are becoming more affordable and more accessible each year, so no matter what size project you might have, reaching out and consulting with a professional will always give you the best insights about how to proceed in your situation.

4 Simple Ways to Digitize Your Paper Documents

December 24, 2020 | 10:05 am
Written by: Michael Harris

Is your office or desk cluttered with paper files? Wouldn’t you love to clear out that clutter and finally get organized?  

One of the biggest reasons you should convert paper documents to electronic files is to save time in the long run. People waste hours searching through physical papers for the information they need. When you digitize documents, searching for information becomes much quicker and easier, saving precious time and effort. Additionally, digital documents are easy to share and retrieve on a much larger scale.

You can access your documents remotely from your mobile device if a sudden need arises, or e-mail them to people who need to see them in an instant. There is no need to wait until you are back at your office or wherever your documents are stored. 

You can also keep better track of your documents when they are digital. Depending upon the type of documents you work with, there are various rules and regulations for handling them. Certain documents need to be kept indefinitely, whereas some need to be eliminated after a certain amount of time. After digitizing paper documents, you will have an easier time keeping track of these different types of records, ensuring that you comply with the document retention policies in place. 

The best way to accomplish this task is by converting all of your hard copy paper documents to digital documents copies that can be stored and accessed online. Physical documents can easily be digitized, offering you numerous advantages.

Let’s take a look at some of the best ways to digitize paper documents.

1. Multi-Function Devices

A multi-functional device (MFD) produces good quality digitized documents, but it requires some effort on your part. If you already have such a device, it should feature a built-in scanner with which you can digitize paper documents. However, even if your MFD can be sheet-fed automatically, this is still a rather time-consuming method of digitizing paper documents. If you have a large number of papers that need to be scanned, this method may take quite a while. Multi-function devices also tend to jam from time to time, which can lead to a lot of frustration and wasted time. 

Generally, this approach should only be used if you have an MFD into which paper is sheet-fed automatically. This saves a considerable amount of time.

2. Desktop Scanners

This is another simple, but tedious, way to digitize paper documents. There are many varieties of desktop paper scanners available so you want to choose one to best suite your needs. A few things to keep in mind are the sizes of paper the scanner can handle, the speed, whether it can scan in color, and black and white, resolution options, and software capabilities. This option could be a good way to start on your document digitization but would be quite the undertaking if you have a large volume of papers to get through, or if some of them are irregular in size or type. This may not be the absolute best way to scan documents, but it can certainly get you started if you just have a handful of regular papers you want to digitize. 

3. Apps

If you have a very small quantity of paper documents, one option is to simply scan them within a scanning app on your smartphone or tablet. For instance, the Google Drive app features OCR software that allows you to scan documents and save them onto the drive. Camscanner and Scanbot are other popular options. This method can be a great approach if you do not know how to digitize documents since most apps have pretty simple step-by-step instructions that inexperienced scanners can follow. However, if you have more than just a handful of items you would like to save, this is definitely not the best way to scan documents. Scanning a high volume of papers will take time and a lot of storage space on your device.

Once again, go with this approach only if you want to digitize limited paper documents.

4. Document Imaging Services

The go-to option for bulk document scanning projects. Send your files over to a company that offers professional document imaging services. They can digitize and index all of your documents using workflow processes and specialized equipment that ensures your documents are digitized accurately, efficiently and at the highest quality. Document imaging service providers can handle your entire project from prepping, scanning, indexing, formatting, uploading to your EDMS, right through to document shredding. This option is typically the best way to digitize paper documents in order to make the best use of your digital files. Outsourcing is also generally much less expensive, quicker, less tedious and more accurate than handling it yourself. 

If you have a lot of important documents that you need to be saved, a professional document imaging service is by far the best way to digitize documents. 

What Should You Keep in Mind

Keep the following tips in mind to prevent potential issues.

      • It’s not always necessary to scan every piece of paper in your office. Check your organization’s document retention policies to determine what you need to keep and what just be shredded.
      • Save electronic files in a universal file format, such as pdf, to maximize usability.
      • This applies after you have digitized all documents. Now, if you ever get a physical copy, digitize it instantly instead of waiting.  If you delay it, the documents will just pile up, and it will be a hassle for you to digitize them again. Once you have digitized your backfile, setup scanner substations in your office to scan today forward documents into your electronic document management system. Streamline this practice as part your daily process so documents don’t pile up
      • Maintain multiple backups of all electronic Either store copies of your database on external hard drives, your local server and/or the cloud. 
      • Name files properly and add dates or other index fields where required so they can be searched for and accessed easily. Make sure the digital files are organized in a hierarchy into folders and sub-folders so that when you search later, you can easily find the information you are looking for. Most Imaging services will do this for you so be sure to ask.
      • Scanning high volumes of documents are no easy task and there are bound to be errors. Make sure you have comprehensive quality assurance policies in place during every step of your process to reduce errors and maximize quality.

Whether you are very familiar with the process of document digitization or have no clue where to begin, contact us today. Here at Smooth Solutions, you can trust us with digitizing your precious documents. We have over 25 years of experience, so you can be confident that our highly-trained staff will handle your important papers quickly and safely. No matter the size of your paper or film, our team of experienced professionals will get the job done. If you need to digitize your paper documents but don’t know where to start, call or email us and we will be happy to help!

How to Boost Your Team’s Efficiency through Workflow Management Software

October 29, 2020 | 4:30 am
Written by: Brandon Harris

Productivity is a buzzword that every team leader loves. Getting the most out of the people in a team is always generating discussions, and new digital tools are becoming available to help make significant improvements.

Workflow management software is one of the solutions that can have a massive impact on how your team operates, as it can help streamline various tasks and ensure that your team gets from point A to point B in the most efficient way possible.

But how can you use workflow management software to boost your team’s productivity?

Let’s explore below.

Better Communication

No matter how big or small the project, communication will be a deciding factor in its success. And one of the biggest advantages of workflow management software is its ability to help people connect and share ideas.

While many direct communication tools can help, having a shared and efficient workspace that works across multiple platforms is just as important.

Save Time

Time is an invaluable asset for any company, so you should do everything in your power to ensure that your employees spend it wisely as well.

With the help of workflow management software, you can help automate many manual and repetitive tasks, streamline processes, and keep track of any project’s progress.

Sharing feedback on various stages of the project means that your employees will always know exactly what needs to be done and won’t have to waste time going back and forth with colleagues before they can get to work.

Effectively Delegates Tasks

Another way to boost employee efficiency is to give them tasks that they are good at. Workflow management systems allow you to set up specific rules for what happens in different situations, assigning roles, and giving tasks to people based on the pre-set criteria.

You can set up steps that will be triggered in case of an event, eliminating a lot of manual labor and ensuring that the right person can quickly approve each step.

Schedule Tasks Rationally

If your office is like most, your team is likely juggling multiple projects at once. What’s more, each employee probably has their own unique challenges and side projects that they need to take care of, which can often make prioritizing a challenge.

Having a centralized system for managing all of the projects and tasks makes it much easier to stay on top of what needs to be done, both on a larger level and on a per-employee basis.

Improve Morale

Finally, better processes that can be achieved using workflow management software also provide an immediate boost to team morale. People will be much more motivated when they know exactly what they need to do and see other people working on their tasks as well.

Over time, you can leverage the improved efficiency benefits of WMS and electronic document management system, and it can become a part of your company culture, providing a massive edge over many of your competitors whose employees are still stuck doing manual, inefficient, and repetitive tasks instead of focusing on what really matters for success.