Businesses of all sizes are looking for ways to reduce paper, improve efficiency, and make important information easier to access. Filing cabinets, storage boxes, and paper records can take up valuable space while making it difficult for employees to quickly locate the information they need.
Moving from paper files to digital records can help businesses create a more efficient document management process. However, going paperless involves more than putting documents through a scanner.
A successful digitization project requires planning, organization, indexing, quality control, security, and a strategy for managing digital files after they have been scanned.
That’s where professional document scanning services can help.
What Is Document Scanning?
Document scanning is the process of converting paper documents into electronic files.
Depending on the project, documents can be scanned into a variety of digital formats and organized according to the needs of the business.
Document scanning may be used for:
- Employee records
- Customer files
- Contracts
- Financial records
- Legal documents
- Medical records
- Invoices
- Historical documents
- Business correspondence
- Archived files
- Project records
The goal isn’t simply to create digital copies. The goal is to create an organized digital document system that makes information easier to manage and retrieve.
Why Are Businesses Going Paperless?
There are several reasons businesses are moving away from paper-based document management.
Reduce Physical Storage
Paper documents require physical space.
Filing cabinets, storage rooms, and off-site document storage can become increasingly expensive as a business grows.
Digitizing documents can reduce the amount of physical storage required and help businesses make better use of available office space.
Find Documents Faster
Searching through paper files can take minutes—or much longer—depending on the size and organization of a filing system.
Digitized documents can be indexed and organized to make retrieval significantly easier.
Employees can spend less time searching through filing cabinets and more time focusing on their primary responsibilities.
Improve Document Accessibility
Digital files can be made available to authorized employees who need them.
This can be particularly useful for businesses with multiple locations, remote employees, or teams that need to collaborate on the same records.
Protect Important Information
Physical documents can be damaged by fire, water, environmental conditions, or other unexpected events.
Digitizing important records can provide an additional layer of protection as part of a broader records preservation and business continuity strategy.
What Should Businesses Consider Before Scanning?
Going paperless should begin with a plan.
Before starting a document scanning project, businesses should determine what needs to be scanned, how documents will be organized, who needs access, and how digital records will be maintained.
1. Determine Which Documents Need to Be Digitized
Not every piece of paper necessarily needs to be scanned.
Businesses should evaluate their existing records and determine which documents need to be:
- Digitized
- Archived
- Retained in physical form
- Securely destroyed
A records inventory can help identify priorities.
2. Establish an Indexing System
Scanning thousands of documents without a logical organization system can simply replace one filing problem with another.
Indexing helps users locate digital documents after scanning.
Depending on the business, documents might be indexed by:
- Client
- Customer
- Employee
- Account number
- Case number
- Document type
- Date
- Department
- Project
The indexing structure should reflect how employees actually search for information.
3. Consider Searchable Documents
Businesses should consider whether scanned documents need to be searchable.
Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, can convert printed text within scanned documents into searchable information.
This can be especially useful when employees need to search large document collections for specific names, dates, words, or other information.
4. Plan for Security
Digital documents can contain confidential business, financial, legal, medical, or customer information.
Before digitizing records, businesses should establish appropriate access and security procedures.
Not every employee needs access to every document.
A document management strategy should identify who can access particular categories of information and how those files will be protected.
5. Determine What Happens to the Original Documents
Once paper documents have been scanned, businesses need to determine what should happen to the originals.
Some records may need to be retained for legal, regulatory, contractual, or business reasons.
Other documents may be eligible for secure destruction once the appropriate requirements have been satisfied.
This is why document scanning and records management should be considered together.
Should You Scan Documents In-House?
Businesses can certainly purchase scanners and attempt to digitize records internally.
However, large document scanning projects can quickly become time-consuming.
Employees may have to:
- Remove staples and paper clips.
- Sort documents.
- Prepare pages for scanning.
- Scan the documents.
- Check image quality.
- Rename files.
- Organize documents.
- Enter indexing information.
- Correct scanning errors.
- Store and manage the resulting digital files.
For a small number of documents, this may be manageable.
For thousands or hundreds of thousands of pages, professional document scanning services can provide a much more efficient approach.
What Professional Document Scanning Services Can Include
A professional scanning provider can manage many of the steps involved in a large-scale digitization project.
Depending on the requirements, services may include:
- Document preparation
- High-volume scanning
- Document indexing
- OCR
- Quality control
- File organization
- Digital delivery
- Archival scanning
- Document preservation
- Secure document handling
DocuSource provides document imaging and scanning solutions designed around the specific needs of each project. The company also offers archival scanning and document preservation services for organizations managing large collections of records.
Create a More Efficient Digital Document Workflow
Going paperless should be viewed as a document management project rather than simply a scanning project.
Once documents are digitized, businesses should have a plan for:
- Organizing digital records
- Searching and retrieving files
- Managing access
- Backing up information
- Retaining records
- Securely destroying documents when appropriate
A well-designed digital document workflow can help businesses reduce administrative work and improve access to information.
Is Your Business Ready to Go Paperless?
If filing cabinets and paper storage are taking over your office, it may be time to consider document digitization.
Professional document scanning services can help businesses convert paper records into organized digital information while reducing the burden of managing physical documents.
Whether you need to scan a small collection of business records or digitize a large archive, DocuSource can help develop a document scanning solution based on your organization’s needs.
Ready to move beyond paper? Contact DocuSource to discuss your document scanning and digitization project.