If you’re in charge of managing your organization’s paper documents and other hard copy files, it’s time to consider scanning your records into digital images.
We’re not suggesting that you need to scan your files yourself; your company probably doesn’t have high-capacity scanners to handle the large volume of paper files and business documents you’ve been storing for years. The good news is that a professional document imaging and scanning service company will make short work of all your electronic capture needs.
Why You Should Choose To Scan And Create Digital Files
There’s never been a better time to convert your records to digital images. There are so many benefits that come with digitized documents, many of which you may not know about. Below are 10 of the best reasons to get your office documents scanned into a digital format.
Reduce document retrieval times
With a uniform file naming system in place, your staff will be able to pull the necessary records they need in mere seconds.
According to the Scannmore, the average employee spends 400 hours a year searching for documents. Imagine the time and money your organization would save if your documents could be accessed almost instantaneously. Even spending half the amount of time locating and retrieving files could save your organization tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. With OCR software available today, you can apply optical character recognition to your digital files and locate records almost instantaneously, even if you didn’t index or capture the file names!
Keep documents secure
Laws and compliance guidelines like HIPAA and FACTA require businesses to protect sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands. Digitally stored documents allow you to control user permissions and audit who accesses a digital copies of records as well as when the access occurred.
“Electronic records are arguably more secure if the proper policies and best available technologies are in place. For example, paper medical records do not allow one to obtain an accurate audit trail of who has seen the record and what portions of the record were accessed. Also, the use of paper records make it difficult to restrict certain classes of users to see only particular types of information. Paper records are easily altered by removal or substitution of documents, but an electronic document signed with an encrypted digital signature is much more difficult to alter.”
Protect documents from natural disasters
Floods, fires, tornados, and other emergencies can destroy hard copy documents forever, causing permanent loss of that information. Scanned images from your business documents, on the other hand, can be backed up to cloud storage or a remote site and made available during and after an emergency.
Decrease your company’s environmental footprint
Scanning your records and saving all that paper and ink will make your organization a lot greener (you’ll probably save a bundle on toner and paper, too). Be sure to choose a document scanning partner who will shred and recycle all that paper for you after they complete the scanning process, if you choose to shred your documents.
Rapidly send and receive documents
With the omnipotence of digital technology (computers in our offices and a mobile device in our pocket), documents can be emailed or shared at any time and near instantaneously. There’s no need to make a copy and mail it out anymore, and certainly no reason to wait days for the records to be delivered. Once you decide to scan your hard copy records into digital file formats, you’ll be prepared to find and send requested information rapidly and easily!
Simplify collaboration
Many document management systems allow multiple users to edit electronic files simultaneously. Getting the whole team’s ideas and feedback on a project has never been easier, reducing time spent sending versions back and forth and using cumbersome editing tools.
Effectively use your existing resources
How much room does your company’s many boxes of documents occupy? How many more desks could you fit in the office if those boxes were gone? How much more efficiently could your staff work if they could retrieve any document with a few mouse clicks? Many offices could make far better use of their space and staff if they switched to digital archives.
Preserve important documents
Compared to digital storage and cloud technology, physical records are much more likely to be damaged or destroyed. Paper is easily damaged, and microfilm can deteriorate over time.
Electronic file formats can be maintained (theoretically) forever because they won’t deteriorate like a physical copy. A caveat to this is that the medium that the digital data is stored on might degrade or break (think DVDs or network servers), so those physical parts need to be maintained to ensure your data is safe and properly maintained.
Improve audit compliance
Organizations in various industries face regulatory and legal compliance audits. Having the ability to retrieve digital documents quickly can make audit processes much less painful.
Optimize customer service
If your company delivers paperwork to customers, quick digital document retrieval will speed up the process and please your clients. And when you offer secure digital storage, you provide customers with priceless peace of mind.
Our proficient ScannMore Document Digitizing Services help you to digitize and store your documents to ensure that you don't lose any valuable information.
