subject: Outsource Document Scanning - Keeping Records The Modern Way [print this page] The reasons for the migration to paperless are easy to appreciate. Electronic documents are easier to store and find. They can be shared remotely, reducing storage costs of materials, have increased security, are easy to store, easy to manage and destroyed as needed. But with rooms full of files to the task to convert can be overwhelming. Here are some base to start a digitization project of Office documents.
How to scan?
The first step in the project is to obtain a scope of the project. A standard file box (10 "x 12" x15 ") holds approximately 2500 pages. One tablet contains about 200 pages per inch. Most projects can be estimated based on a multiple of these averages. It is more precise than the estimate of a estimate of the number of files and pages per file.
What to scan
Most companies do not choose to scan every piece of paper is stored. Check your records against the retention schedule of the company and shredding is no longer necessary. Then determine what the most and the biggest advantage when scanning.
A common solution is to schedule a scan. All documents under the date of scanning, scanned, swept almost everything only when opened. This solution reduces what should be digitized, while slowly converting older documents on an ad hoc basis.
Size of scanned documents
The most common format for electronic documents in Portable Document Format (PDF). It is widely used and easy to share and protect. Other options are Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) and RAW image file (RAW). Digital images can also be processed by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). It transforms digital images into text documents. Once it's a text document, you can search for keywords in a document.
What is indexing?
Indexing is the system to organize files. It is a numeric field to the file after scanning. It can "record date", "patient name", "customer number", or other area that would help to find documents are.
Preparation of documents
Production scanners are designed to automatically letter and legal sized documents to be delivered. They are high speed and scan up to 10,000 pages per hour. Preparation is the removal of all fasteners and staples. Odd-sized documents to be included on standard paper. Photos and documents in color should be treated separately. The documents will be put back together after scanning.
Electronic Document Management
Once documents are scanned they need good storage. It is common to them on disks, but reduces its usefulness. At least, they should be stored at a remote location. A better solution is to store a system of electronic document management. This makes documents easy to find and who has access to information in particular to manage. The system can be internally or via a cloud computing service to be managed.
Cost of digitizing
A draft of the document scanning can be done with existing staff or outsourced to a scanning service. The decision is largely based on project size. For a few thousand pages or less, it is cheaper to do the work internally.
If you outsource the work, there are steps you can take to reduce costs. Through the establishment of in-house scanning saves you money. Also be wise in what you choose to scan. If it is probably not needed in the future, it will save money to make it in a paper.
