Do you remember the time when offices maintained big ledgers and files to enter business-related information? Now, most offices are on the path to become paperless and green. With phenomenal advancements in technology, business offices are busy digitalizing all their paper assets. Digitization is to be done professionally, and that is where document scanning companies become important. Their professional approach would ease your job and ensure that all your documents are digitized perfectly, and are error-free. Thus, hiring a document scanning service is the practical option for scanning documents. However, if you are planning to do the scanning in-house, you need to prepare the documents.
Preparation before Submitting Documents for Scanning
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Remove paper clips and tapes
Go through the documents thoroughly and remove any paper clips, binds, tapes and so on which are used to keep the document together. This will help save a lot of time and speed up the scanning process.
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Categorize the documents
When you decide to digitize your paper documents, categorize the documents as “important” and “less important” as well as “files which are beneficial after digitalization.”
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Dispose unwanted files
Keep unwanted documents as well as files which have no further operational values separately. You can either dispose of those files or keep them separate from the necessary ones.
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Straighten the paper
Before giving documents for scanning, make sure that every paper in the document is straight. If you find a folded paper, straighten it before sending it for scanning.
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Keep files which are not so important or would expire within a short time
Sometimes we may not open a file for a long period. In other instances, some may expire within a short span of time. In that scenario, digitization is a waste of time and money. It is better to keep such files separately rather than digitalizing.
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Separate documents which slow down the scanner
Usually the standard size of the paper is 8.5*11”. However, documents such as receipts, cards, photographs, oversized papers like maps as well as thin and lightweight paper might jam or slow down the scanner while scanning. Thus, organize such documents separately before scanning.
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Index your documents before scanning
Indexing is the electronic entry of documents. This will help you to recheck the documents after scanning. If any document is not scanned, you can scan them at that instance. At the same time, you can also find out if any original documents are missing after scanning.
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Prepare a post-scanning plan
Prepare post-scanning plans before handing over the documents for scanning. Decide whether you have to keep the original documents safely after digitalization; create a backup or recovery option if the digital copies got deleted; create files for storing scanned documents, and so on. Always remember that if the digital copies get deleted or misplaced, recovery is very difficult. So, keep the original documents safely for some more time.
The pre-scanning process is very important. If the firm has been running for decades, then ancient yet still relevant files would be there. Finding such files from thousands of piles of files is a very tedious process. However, it may be really worth spending some time because then you can ensure that all important documents are safe and secure.
Advantages of Document Scanning
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Important information is preserved
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Safe locker for documents even for decades’ old documents
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Less use of paper
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Environment-friendly
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Reduce costs
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Minimize the use of paper
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More efficient
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Avoid risk of losing documents
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Can retrieve files within seconds
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Can share documents without compromising confidentiality
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Can access documents in any location
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Protect documents from natural disasters
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Smoothen business processes
The scanning can also be entrusted to a reliable document conversion company. Experienced document scanning companies are highly professional and ensure dedicated services. As they have expertise in the document scanning process, your documents will be scanned perfectly, and they will hand over the original documents undamaged after scanning. Digitalizing documents would increase the work efficiency of employees. Thus, for securing the position of your firm along with your competitors, digitize your business office space. Document scanning services can help you achieve your objectives.
