The decision to create digital files of your paper records is always a smart one. However, the bulk scanning process can get expensive if you waste time and money without a plan. Here we look at five tips to lower your document scanning project price so you see the best ROI for your digital transformation.
There’s a lot of prep work required when documents are scanned. You can save a lot of money by having your own team do the prep work, including:
By getting everything organized, your document scanning service can focus on scanning. This reduces costs because the most time-consuming steps are out of the way. Although scanning is the bulk of the work, an efficient scanning company can get through the work quite quickly when all the prep work is done for them. You can also organize things in a more logical manner, so the scanned documents are easier to index.
During this process, consider what documents you can weed out. If information is now irrelevant, outdated, or not required for compliance, this is your chance to get rid of papers you don’t need. By weeding out unnecessary documents, you can reduce the scope of your bulk scanning project and shred the papers you no longer need.
If your paper records are stored in various filing cabinets, storage shelves, standard boxes, etc., packing them in banker boxes makes it much easier to transport them to the scanning facility. In fact, you can combine prep and packing to kill two birds with one stone. Boxes can be labelled to keep everything organized.
Most document scanning services are happy to pick up your box of documents and deliver them to their facility. However, if you have a contract with a courier, you might find it cheaper to ship your records on your own. Look into costs and compare them to what your scanning service is charging to determine what is more cost-effective.
Depending on the size of your organization, delegating work to just one person can increase the risk of errors. When possible, recruit help from all involved departments to ensure you spread out the responsibility to the right people. These team members provide expertise, such as HR personnel who understand what records must be maintained or a legal team member to ensure you remain compliant. You also generally have a designated leader representing the departments affected by the scanning project. Although it might seem like overkill, it’s better to cover all bases, so irreparable mistakes aren’t made.
Some examples of compliance issues posed during the scanning process include:
With proper management of paper record compliance, you avoid compliance issues and information loss and increase security.
Information architecture keeps everything organized and groups relevant documents together before you begin. Because scanning should improve the search process for documents, your architecture and indexing are among the benefits of going paperless. It allows you to logically name and store your documents, so they are easy to search. Creating an indexing format prior to scanning is a major time saver. It uses effective metadata naming practices based on the criteria you set that make the most sense for your operations. Through indexing, you make the search and retrieval of documents easier.
A well-thought-out document indexing format uses tags or related information that is used for all documents. As a result, moving forward, everyone in your organization will use it to save and retrieve documents. Think of metadata as keywords when searching for something online. It applies logical words, terms, or phrases most people would use to search for specific documents. Because everyone might have their own method or logic, setting rules ensure everyone uses the same save and search terms.
Using document management software to access data in hand with metadata ensures the process of creating, saving, and storing documents is completely streamlined. Without document management software in place, your investment in your paper scanning project is a waste of money. Implementing a document management system optimizes your scanning efforts, so the saving, storage and retrieval of paper records become more efficient. You can increase your ROI for your project with the following benefits:
When choosing document management software, look for key features that cover all your needs, including:
Your document management system is the best way to leverage your scanned document project and remain scalable to create a paperless office.
These tips will reduce the cost of your scanning project. However, when scanning paper documents to digital files, using an experienced scanning service is the best way to go. We ensure you have high-quality scans, proper digital formats, and high-speed scanning that can manage large formats. Reach out to the experts at MES for an accurate quote as well as assistance in selecting an effective document management software.