Business organizations accumulate data that may be electronic as well as paper based. These include data pertaining to various aspects of the organization including its history, business strategies, operational procedures, and transaction details among others. These documents may be imperative for future business planning. Therefore, it is necessary to retain and preserve them. Some of these documents may be in paper form while others may be in an outdated electronic version. Hence, they are to be converted into modern formats, to protect them and to prevent them from getting lost. Partnering with an experienced document conversion companyis a practical option to convert documents from and to any type of file format.
If you are doing document conversion in-house, then you need to determine and follow an effective process to ensure that certain conditions are met and that the documents are ready prior to conversion. The following are some steps to follow to ensure that your documents are ready for conversion.
- Inventory – The first thing you need to do is to take an inventory of all your documents. The next step is to determine the number of documents in paper form or electronic form and the various versions of software the documents are saved in. In addition, some of these documents need to be moved to a common destination, and you have to determine that destination. However, this involves transportation costs. You should think about a plan to collect and bring the documents together.
- Categorize – There are various types of documents, some documents maybe related to manufacturing processes, while others may be catalogs, manuals and process papers, technical reports, patents and regulatory papers. Other documents include insurance papers, lease agreements, financial records, internal and external correspondence as well as real estate papers. The team handling the conversion process must sort the documents and arrange them under various heads. This makes it easy for your company officials to locate these documents, whenever they are needed.
- Format – You need to decide whether all the documents should be available in one format, or indifferent formats based on the needs of the content. Nowadays, many electronic options are available. You need to conduct a little research to make the right decision. Outsourcing your document conversion tasks to professional document conversion companies could help eliminate these concerns. With a team of experienced data conversion specialists as well as QA personnel and using the latest technology, a document conversion service provider can convert all types of data and images in any format to usable, standardized formats.
- Timeline – It may be difficult to convert large volumes of documents in a single attempt. The conversion process may stretch out over a few days. So, it is necessary to ensure that this will not hamper your regular work, in case the documents are still being used for daily operations or for research work. Simultaneously, the schedule should not delay conversion work infinitely. Ideally, document conversion should be completed as quickly and as smoothly as the volumes and technology permit.
- Keep data safe – It is imperative to keep all confidential data safe because the company is dealing with information that shows how their products are manufactured, how their services are run, information about their employees, their dealings with vendors and government agencies and many more. Such information should not fall into the wrong hands. If the document conversion is performed in-house, you should ensure that only the most trustworthy and skilled employees are chosen for the task. If you are considering outsourcing document conversion tasks to a professional document conversion company, then make sure that they have robust and reliable security measures in place to protect data and prevent unauthorized access.
The document conversion process is not a one-time activity. It should be done on a regular basis to prevent backlog and hampered productivity. Consider partnering with a document conversion company that can handle all your document conversion needs in an efficient and timely manner.
