Document Scanning: Step One Toward An Efficient Organization

By Bill Thomas
From my “DocuBLOG” column
Bill works for USA-ONE Interactive

Ever feel like you’re drowning in paper? You’re not alone. Sometimes when I look at the bulging files virtually busting out of office file cabinets, I wonder if anyone really knows where a given document is located. The truth is, often they don’t. Whether you work in a doctor’s office, a manufacturing firm, a marketing company, a pharmaceutical giant or any of the thousands of mom and pop shops that dot the business landscape, the sheer mass of paper contained in your “paper trail” is probably overwhelming. Document scanning is the antidote to paper overload.

Document scanning is today’s way of taking control of the clutter, including everything from documents you refer to daily to those you haven’t looked at since your incorporation, but still need to hold on to.

Document scanning can encompass both paper documents and information currently stored on microfilm. It’s an excellent way to bring all the hodge-podge you call “files” together in one consistent, accessible system. Clearly, document scanning offers many advantages:

• Document scanning eliminates the need for all those disorganized, easily lost, paper records. This saves valuable floor space in your company.


• Document scanning greatly reduces the number of duplicate documents you have squirreled away in your “physical archive.”


• Document scanning saves search time. Everything you’ve scanned is instantly available on screen. You save hours scrounging through dusty files, often in a panic because a valuable document has vanished.


• Document scanning allows you to maintain a consistent high quality of document appearance over all the items scanned. Even if your scans include pages from rare old books, schematic drawings, old handwritten notes — whatever, you can count on document scanning to deliver the highest quality image possible.


• Document scanning helps you speed up your service to customers. Since everything you need for a customer transaction is accessible at your fingertips, you can answer questions and solve problems fast, and that makes everyone happier.


• Document scanning saves money by cutting the high cost of storage. No more ugly metal file cabinets overwhelming your attractive office décor, no more storage room stacked high with boxes filled with old records you don’t dare pitch out. No more employees spending costly time digging through this mess to find something that may, or may not, be there. Everything is neat and organized and that’s a real confidence builder for clients visiting your office and being served by your staff.

If a paperless office is the future — and it seems that this is certainly where American business is heading — then documentscanning is a key part of your success.