Paper documents sitting around an office take up space and cost. Using paper can run 13 to 31 times the cost of buying the paper. A standard filing cabinet with four drawers takes up 9 square feet of office space.
On the contrary, one terabyte of scanned data equals approximately 1,500 four-drawer filing cabinets. Digitizing documents also cuts costs for copying, printing, and mailing paper documents. By scanning and archiving more paper documents, businesses can accelerate their transformation to a paperless, digital environment and realize several benefits along the way.
Easier access
Your employees already spend too much time—up to 3.6 hours a day, by certain estimates—searching for information to do their jobs. If they could simply click on well-organized file folders instead of rifling through filing cabinets, they would likely stop wasting so much time. There’s also the added benefit of multiple people being able to look for and access the same file at once if it’s digital. You can’t say the same if they have to crouch around a single filing cabinet.
Solid security
If your business has sensitive physical documents easily accessible to any employee or person who walks through the door, you have a potential data breach on your hands. Digital document storage and archiving help secure valuable files and records for compliance and legal reasons with the proper regulations in place.
Decreased risk
Having a single physical copy of a document is a risk. All it takes is a malfunctioning sprinkler system to destroy a customer’s only copy of hardcopy, microfilm, microfiche, aperture cards, or something else. Digital document storage and archiving preserves back-ups of these items to reduce the chances of them getting damaged or lost.
Better collaboration
No more need to make copies ahead of meetings. When your documents live online, you can quickly email them before a conversation or collaborate in real-time, even if you’re not in the same room or building.
Personalized messaging
When your documents are in one place, you can better centralize data to understand customer background, preferences, and needs. You can use this intel to drive additional revenue opportunities via personalized messaging and offers that keep customers engaged and boost loyalty.
What to look for in a document scanning and archiving partner
There is a lot of technology that goes into document scanning and archiving. The documents businesses might want to scan vary in type, format, size, and length—ranging from maps to bound books. If you choose to outsource your document scanning and archiving, you’ll want a vendor that offers the following tools and use cases:
- Form field optical character recognition (OCR) for structured and unstructured documents helps extract specific values/fields in a document
- Full-page OCR for clients wanting searchable documents from scanned images
- High-speed, unbound paper scanning for documents up to 12” wide for file folder content, accounts payable/accounts receivable documents, and more
- Data capture software for specific values/fields in either paper documents or images
- Wide format scanner for maps, blueprints, construction documents, and other items between 12” and 42” wide
- Microfilm scanner for converting microfilm to digital images
- Microfiche/aperture card scanner for converting these documents to digital images
- Bound book scanner for scanning books that need to be kept intact for preservation or because they are fragile and can’t be scanned on a high-speed scanner
- Document prep, image enhancement, and proprietary internal tracking/custom verification applied based on client requirements for file folders, delicate documents, and stapled documents
- Web preservation software for retrieving and archiving scanned images and corresponding index values
It goes without saying that you should also look for a partner with personalized client service and support regardless of the size of your company.
Document scanning and archiving with OSG
If you want to digitize your business, you’ve come to the right place. OSG has the systems and support to handle your scanning and archiving needs on a per-project or ongoing basis. Get in touch today to learn more.