Whether you’re looking for ways to reduce costs on your next outsourced document scanning project, or control costs on your ongoing in-house document scanning processes, you need to take a broad look at what “cost” really means.
Broadly speaking, every document scanning project includes three stages:
- Preparation: select documents to be scanned, remove staples and paper clips, sort the documents and arrange the papers into batches. This is labor-intensive work. According to estimates from Document Management magazine, the preparation stage accounts for 37% of the costs of a typical document scanning project.
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Methods and Procedures - Tagged: digital conversion, document imaging, document imaging and scanning, document scanning, document scanning and conversion
Document scanning is not just for managing documents at the “end of their life cycle” as in records retention, regulatory compliance and archiving. It can also be useful for improving the business’s ongoing operations, creating efficiencies, saving time and improving productivity in a number of areas that affect the daily work of the organization.
Document scanning can help improve…
- Response time: With digitally scanned documentation, it’s easier to find relevant information to answer questions from customers or respond to inquiries from auditors and regulatory compliance officials. If you have a digital database of well-organized digital documents that can be searched by keyword (using Optical Character Recognition), you never have to worry about sending the wrong version of a contract, sending an archived invoice to the wrong customer, or failing to find a time-sensitive record.
Posted by Ben - Posted in: The Business Case for Document Imaging - Tagged: digital conversion, digital document imaging, document imaging, document imaging and scanning, document scanning, document scanning and conversion
Whether your company uses in-house staff, temporary workers, or outsourced scanning services, efficiency in document scanning is becoming more important than ever before. Companies are looking for new efficiencies in document scanning to save money, improve workflows, capture business-critical information, and simplify their daily operations by reducing the amount of paper involved in their work processes.
Here are a few key components to consider when evaluating the efficiency of your document scanning operation:
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Methods and Procedures - Tagged: digital conversion, document imaging, document imaging and scanning, document scanning, document scanning and conversion, efficient document scanning
Many companies are using document imaging to save time and money in managing paper documents, convert their business operations to “paperless” work processes, and convert their paper documents and archives to digital format.
As the market for document imaging services continues to grow, companies are seeking a higher level of sophistication from their document scanning vendors.
Several key trends are emerging, as document imaging takes on a larger role in process improvement, data extraction, and information security.
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Document Imaging Ideas and Trends - Tagged: digital conversion, digital document imaging, document imaging and scanning, document scanning, document scanning and conversion, document scanning services, Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR), Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
In part 1 of this article, we looked at the “what” of choosing a scanner for your business – the business needs, the kind of documents and the level of image quality.
Now let’s consider the “who” and the “how” – three more key questions that every business decision maker needs to ask before purchasing a new scanner.
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Document Imaging Ideas and Trends - Tagged: document scanning, document scanning and conversion, document scanning services
Digital scanning and document conversion are growing trends in business, as companies look to “go paperless,” reduce the amount of time and money they spend handling paper documents, streamline their work processes by using more electronic files, or convert paper archives to digital format.
If your company is thinking about doing scanning, you need to give some thought to what kind of scanner to buy. Choosing the right scanner can make a big difference – you can potentially save hundreds or thousands of dollars and avoid a significant amount of frustration.
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Document Imaging Ideas and Trends - Tagged: document imaging and scanning, document scanning, document scanning services
Every document conversion project is its own unique event, and every project has to be customized based on the needs and specifications of the client. But despite the many variables, there are a few things that every document conversion project has in common.
Here are four big questions that every client needs to ask themselves prior to starting a document conversion project with an outsourced scanning service:
1. Are you willing to hire temporary employees?
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Document Imaging Ideas and Trends
Another part of preparing for a document conversion project is for the client to have a sense of whether or not they need to include barcodes as part of the scanning process. Many clients think that barcodes are a “must have” to ensure an efficient document conversion. But the reality is that you don’t always need barcodes.
It’s true that barcodes can be used when scanning documents in order to create an accurate index to find the scanned images’ accompanying data. At microMEDIA, we almost always use barcodes as part of our scanning process for clients. However, while barcodes can be useful, they are not an absolute requirement.
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Methods and Procedures - Tagged: barcodes, document scanning, document scanning and conversion, document scanning service
When hiring an outsourced document scanning service like microMEDIA, it helps to have a good understanding of the typical roles and responsibilities. There are certain tasks that the scanning service provides, but the client ultimately has to be actively involved in the scanning process and responsible for oversight of the final result. With clear communication and open collaboration along the way, we can make your document conversion project a success.
Questions to ask before starting a document conversion project
Every document conversion project is its own unique creation. There are so many variables that go into determining the right approach and process.
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Methods and Procedures - Tagged: digital document imaging, digital imaging solutions, document imaging, document scanning and conversion
As part of every aperture card conversion project, microMEDIA Imaging Systems delivers digital files of all scanned microfilm images from the aperture cards, as well as an accompanying database of metadata from the cards which is used to identify the images.
These two components are linked together so that clients can search through the database to find the appropriate image based on the dates, project names, and other data categories, and also quickly search and review the scanned digital images from the microfilms.
Searchable Database: As part of every aperture card conversion, we create a comma delimited spreadsheet containing the relevant data categories for each scanned microfilm image.
Posted by Ben - Posted in: Methods and Procedures - Tagged: Aperture Card, Aperture Card Conversion, Aperture Card Scanning, Aperture Cards
September 12th 
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