The advent of several advanced digital technologies helps modern businesses to leverage these technologies to improve business operations and boost revenue. In order to maintain compliance with the state and federal regulations, businesses need to store and maintain some important physical documents for several years. The digital business environment involves converting all business data into digital formats. In fact, the majority of active business documents and legacy records need to be scanned or converted from paper to digital. Business organizations require the right kind of support – talent, organizational structure, culture and leadership – to achieve their digitization goals. Scanning documents to convert them into electronic files is the initial step towards applying digital technologies to improve business processes. Document scanning solutions provided by reputable firms help businesses convert large volumes of analog data into digital format thereby instantly accessing the information required.
Need for Bulk Document Scanning Services
Keeping and maintaining key business documents and files in a safe and secure manner is very important for any business firm. Document scanning services turn paper documents into electronic files. Electronic files are valuable for remote workforce that needs access to proprietary information. Digital documents streamline business operations, boost productivity, increase security, and reduce storage costs. Here discussed are some of the key points on business departments in diverse industries benefit from digital document conversion and scanning –
- Improve Information Management Processes – Businesses that struggle with multiple formats of documents can improve their information management processes with a consistent format and indexing process. This improves how the team stores, finds and shares information, thereby improving workflows and creating a more productive, collaborative environment.
- Multiple Locations – Along the lines of information management, if the information and documents are either stored at different locations or required for file sharing at multiple locations, bulk document scanning can help. The process can provide a simple way to store documents in one single spot. This offers several benefits like – easy access of information to everyone with authorization regardless of location. In fact, this point can prove to be quite beneficial for remote workers.
- Centralizes Information – Bulk document scanning centralizes information for a business firm dealing with too many document management systems (like both digital and paper files). This is crucial to avoid outdated versions of information stored in different silos. In addition, it also makes it easy to search information using the same indexing and search criteria.
- Access and Authorization – Sharing documents is always a risky task, particularly in case of confidential business files. Scanning documents helps reduce access and allows sharing based on defined roles. This ensures the confidentiality of documents and make sure that the information is never copied, or experience damage, loss or alteration.
- Enhanced Data Security – When compared to storing paper documents, digital documents are safer for businesses that are highly concerned about data privacy, confidentiality or trade secrets. Businesses such as health, law and financing that give predominant importance to data confidentiality can benefit from secure document storage. Digital documents provide control over document access while simultaneously allowing tracking unauthorized activity. The law requires data storage companies to maintain up-to-date, stringent security protocols and measures. In case of any natural disaster or fire, the documents remain safe and secure and can be accessed almost immediately.
- Compliance/Audits – Being able to instantly access business records help maintain data compliance and make it ready for financial audits. Bulk document scanning centralizes storage and makes searches for vital information easy.
- Document Retention – Both external and internal policies can enforce retention rules that a company must adhere to. If a company is bogged down with huge piles of paper documents they must archive, bulk document scanning can help free up office space and simplify their archiving system.
Bulk Document Scanning – What Are the Key Steps Involved?
Businesses committing to a paperless office need to always understand the benefits and machinations of the bulk document scanning process. In simple terms, bulk document scanning is the quickest, easiest and most secure way to convert paper documents into readable, accessible digital files. The process creates a single format for documents (whether they are paper, microfilm, microfiche, large format paper files such as blueprints, and more) so that they can be easily integrated into a central storage system. Below discussed are the different steps involved in document scanning–
- Create a Definite Strategy – Determining a clear and definite strategy is one of the foremost steps in the document scanning process. With every organization having their own indexing and cataloguing systems (they adapt), no two scanning process are alike. Having a clear and definite idea about the business objectives and discussing document management plan is one of the initial phases of the process. Businesses need to evaluate in detail about the data contained within their documents and build a related strategy that protects their data and ensures the ideal approach for customers.
- Delivery – The documents converted need to be delivered to a secured site where in they can be stored during the scanning process. Top companies employ a chain of custody process where in they can track all related client files throughout the process for the purposes of auditing and emergency retrievals.
- Document Preparation – Preparing the documents is another important step as this helps avoid any specific damage or loss of documents during the scanning process. This includes processes like – removing staples and paperclips, unfolding documents, and checking for possible marks or spots in the documents that may potentially interfere with accurate scans.
- Scanning – Documents are scanned using industry-best practices and state-of-the-art equipment. It is important to adhere to all industry-specific compliance requirements and ensure that the documents remain secure and are not accessed by any unauthorized personnel. During the process, the digital images may be formatted based on the digital format preferred whether it is a TIFF or JPEG.
- Quality Control – During the scanning process, it is important to validate whether the scanned documents are completely readable. In cases, where the image clarity gets compromised, it is important to rescan or touch up the image.
- Indexing – As and when the scanning process get complete and pass quality control, the documents are sent for indexing using the search criteria provided by the business team. This helps in searching and retrieving digital documents easily.
- Paper Document Management – Once the final scanned documents are saved, all the paper documents can be returned to an agreed-upon site or can be destroyed based on industry requirements.
Maintaining security of corporate documents is an important aspect for businesses in any area. Therefore, embracing this approach to turn paper files into electronic files (than maintaining manual documents) can help a company remain competitive and better meet the needs of clients in today’s increasingly “immediate” economy. Document scanning services can help in this process by offering greater accuracy of documents and by maintaining confidentiality of the business.
