If you’re a book enthusiast, news that libraries are going digital may leave you feeling weary. If you’re a library administrator, the concerns of staunch traditionalists may have you shying away from new technology. Fear not, going digital won’t turn your library into a cold, sterile environment from sci-fi future. Instead, it could help to highlight and improve many of the services patrons use on a regular basis.

Workflow and Office Automation can be Exciting... We promise.

Workflow, or office automation, is one of the most exciting and useful features available with document management software. I realize using the word “exciting” with the phrase “document management software” has probably got a few of you laughing, but hear us out.

Access information when, where and how you need it with document scanning

Why should we consider scanning our files?
There are several reasons businesses consider scanning their files; including:

• Space; paper filing systems take up a considerable amount of office space, space that could be better used by productive employees.

• Disaster Recovery Planning; no one likes to think about the worst case scenarios, but those who do are the ones who end up on top. Imagine a fire or flood happened in your office and you lost all your paper files tomorrow. What would that mean for your business? Scanned documents can easily be backed up and recovered from multiple locations with speed and ease.

• Productivity; employees spend about 40% of their time looking for information they need to make decisions. Searching through paper files is, to say the least, time consuming and unproductive. With document scanning your staff can find the information they need in a matter of seconds.

Electronic medical records allow physicians to access patient information. Just as with any other type of office, space is a precious commodity in medical practices. Yet many offices are arranged inefficiently, devoting more space to celling-to-floor shelves stuffed with manila folders than to patient seating. With an increasing number of general practitioners and family doctors reaching patient capacity, space and time saving measures have never been more important.

Are you questioning whether or not you can justify the transition from a paper based filing system to electronic document management solution? The real question should be “can you afford not to?” There are a lot of very expensive and unproductive soft costs associated with a paper filing system; so we ask you, is this really the best use of your staff’s time?

Employee Time Searching for Documents
A recent survey shows that employees spend 25% of their time just looking for information they need to do their job. On top of that, every week 42% of people use the wrong information to make decisions, requiring rework (read = more time, more money). An electronic filing system puts documents at the fingertips of every employee and manages version control, ensuring your staff are always working from the most current information.

Whether your company is just starting to convert documents into digital files, or you've been happily scanning for some time, there are clear advantages to investing in a network scanner. It goes far beyond having the trendiest office equipment; network scanners can significantly improve the efficiency of your day-to-day operations. Features include:

Transitioning to a document management system can seem daunting, especially if you don’t know where to start. The decision to change the way your company handles files and records should be shaped by all aspects of your business needs. The following tips will help to make your transition successful.

Determine the strengths/weaknesses of your current system
Finding inefficiencies in document flow is the first step in determining what type of document management software to invest in. For example, a business that spends money couriering documents between offices could significantly reduce costs and increase productivity by investing in cloud-based software as it would provide a solution to share files from any device with an internet connection.

For organizations who are still paper-based or for those using, unstructured, network drives to store digital files this is a very common question.