Document Management & Document Scanning. Basic Tips

Want to implement document scanning and electronic storage within your business but

not sure where to start? This brief 4 point plan covers the basics to prevent you from making expensive and ineffective purchases of hardware and software

There are 4 main sectors to consider here.

1.Choice of document scanner

2.Where you want to store your documents.

3.Accessing the stored documents.

4.Security and compliance.

Point 1 is a separate article in itself as there are hundreds of document scanner to choose from. We have some basic and advanced information on our website together with a scanner buying guide on video.

Point 2, where to store your documents is a simple one. Most will store to their PC network with daily back ups. With the advent of cloud computing it is possible to store off-line or upload straight to your own server. Back up daily and you will have no problem with any of these options.

Point 3 is slightly more complex. Loading all of your documents to your main network C drive for example, is fine but accessing them can be a real mess. A little more planning and organisation is needed to capitalise on this. This is where document management software comes into its own. Documents can be scanned using OCR (optical character recognition) as searchable PDF's which allows the viewer to pull out any information from any document. For example you may want to access a numbered invoice or a particular date from a delivery note. Think of this as nothing more complex than the way physical originals are stored in files with sub headings. All we are doing here is just duplicating that process, but electronically. Without this facility you WILL NOT maximise the amazing time savings available via electronic document management.

Point 4, Security and Compliance. With the increasing red tape burdens of storing documents for periods of time and ensuring confidentiality and compliance throughout, physical filing systems can often be stretched to the point where they just cannot deliver the necesary controls. With document management you can give access strictly to those who need to view sensitive documents. i.e. HR records or bank details etc.

Storing documents for lengthy, compliance determined, periods of time, some for life such as wills or epa's means that physical filing systems often grow to such a size that it necessitates storing them off site, an expensive and inconvenient option.

For those documents that can be destroyed (not wills or epa's) it makes far more sense to electronically store and back up. The contents of 10 filing cabinets for example, can be stored on just one 8GB memory stick. A drawer full of memory sticks could hold the equivalent of a warehouse full of files!

Clearly, implementing all of this, maintaining it and ensuring staff are properly trained is of paramount importance. Once implemented however the benefits are massive and will definitely give you a competitive edge with faster customer response times being just one of them. Put "document management explained" into any search engine and there is a wealth of information, advice and tutorials galore to prevent you from making costly mistakes. Get three quotations. Insist on speaking to existing customers and check on forums to see if there is any negative feedback about your potential supplier. There is no logical need to get tied into long contracts that have cancellation clauses. This is a competitive field. Find a company who are happy to be judged on their performance as those are the ones who dont need to tie you in to the confines of a contract.

Happy hunting.

by: Geoff Shilton

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