Paper documents have been an integral part of running a business for decades, if not centuries. But that’s no longer the case.
The past 20 years have seen a massive change in how we handle documents, and today it’s easier than ever to make the switch from physical records to electronic document management systems and reap all the benefits that document digitization can offer.
However, many businesses are still hesitant about making the switch – companies that have been operating for a while have a backlog of documents that are important for running day-to-day operations, and transferring everything into a digital format can seem like a daunting task that would disruption in the business when trying to implement it.
Still, those that do take the time can confirm that making the decision is definitely worth it – there are numerous ways how going paperless can help your business grow which greatly outweigh any potential difficulties or inconveniences.
Why Should You Go Paperless?
There are plenty of benefits for going paperless, but perhaps the most obvious is the fact that paper is just inconvenient – it takes up a lot of space and bottlenecks many day-to-day processes.
Even having just a few piles of papers can be challenging to sort through, so when you have to find a way to efficiently store and manage tens or even hundreds of thousands of paper documents, the situation can get out of hand quickly.
And then you add in the cost of storing and securing the vast amount of paper records, and it becomes more than clear that changes need to be made for the company to be run more efficiently.
With a digital document management system, you won’t have this problem – everything can be accessed from a single location and finding any documents takes mere seconds.
What’s more, there’s no risk of documents getting misplaced or lost, and all of the records are securely stored and backed up in an electronic document management system.
With today’s consumers become more conscious of the environmental effects that running a business can entail, reducing your reliance on paper can be a strong benefit for the prospects considering your services.
There are very few industries where it’s impossible to eliminate or at least significantly reduce the amount of paper that’s used, and the implementation of digital records keeping brings many advantages that will serve your company for years to come.
How Do You Digitize Large Amounts of Paper Documents?
While it’s clear that digitizing your documents has numerous benefits, when it comes to actually making the change, many companies are hesitant, and that’s understandable.
Just thinking of the effort it would take to transfer tens of thousands of documents into a digital format can make one’s head hurt, and that’s one of the main reasons why so many businesses still use document management systems from decades ago.
However, if you take the necessary steps, the process doesn’t have to be as difficult, no matter its scope. Here are a few of the main considerations that will be a big part of the process.
Prepare Your Paper Documents for Scanning
Before you can begin the actual process of digitizing your documents, you’ll need to sort and prepare the ones that you want to scan, and decide which documents can be shredded. You’ll also want to think about how you and your co-workers will want to organize and index the digital files so they can be retrieved easily.
If you decide to take on the document scanning project yourself, keep in mind that there are many steps involved. First, you’ll need to train your staff on how to prep the documents efficiently so they can go through a high speed scanner without getting jammed. This involves removing staples & clips, flattening wrinkled or folded pages, and repairing rips or tears.
You can also make use of bar-coded document separator sheets during the initial prep phase. This entails using yellow (or other color) pre-printed bar code sheets to be inserted between each folder or document set that will indicate to the scanning software when to start a new file. This can save lots of time on scanning and post-production.
Get to Scanning!
As you can imagine, when taking on a document digitization project of such a large scale, your regular office scanner isn’t going to cut it. Most regular scanners just aren’t designed to scan thousands of documents quickly without running into problems from heavy use.
For this task you’re going to need high-speed production scanners that are capable of scanning several thousand pages in a shift at a high quality. Other features to look for include double sided scanning, dual stream scanning (scanning in color and black & white simultaneously), multi-page detection and recovery, and blank page removal to name a few.
After scanning is complete you will need to crop, rotate, de-skew and verify each image for quality. Then the images need to be converted to the proper file format, such as PDF with an OCR option for fully searchable text. Each folder and document set also needs to be named and indexed accordingly so that they can be found. Quality verified images and index data are then imported into your electronic document management system of choice.
Choose the Best Medium for Storing Your Digital Documents
Once you go through the entire process of digitizing your documents, you don’t want to waste the effort by leaving your digital records unorganized without a way to manage them.
Therefore you will need to implement a reliable electronic document management system that makes it easy to store and browse your documents, so your employees can find what they need with just a few clicks. There are tons of cloud based or server-based software options out there with various features depending on your needs.
Outsource to a Document Scanning Company
Obviously, the costs associated with purchasing the proper equipment and software, along with hiring and training your staff to perform the work efficiently can be quite expensive, let alone daunting.
That’s why your best option is to outsource the entire process to a document scanning services provider. Document scanning companies have the equipment and the expertise to handle high volume document scanning projects, and can help you through the entire implementation process.
Generally, you can expect outsourcing document scanning to be much less of a hassle, more efficient and more affordable than attempting to do it inhouse.
Luckily, if you decide to use a professional document scanning company, they will be able to offer you a solution that’s best suited for your needs, so you can sit back and relax knowing that the entire process will go smoothly, from start to finish.
