If your office is stacked high with paper and your staff find it difficult to find and store records in overstuffed filing cabinets, it could be time for a better solution.
With document scanning, your business will eliminate unnecessary clutter and free up expensive office space. Your information will also be more secure and accessible, which can boost productivity and efficiency while reducing costs and ensuring business continuity.
What is Document Scanning?
Document scanning (commonly referred to as document imaging or document conversion) transforms ordinary paper documents into usable and accessible digital files. Documents are put through a scanning device, which converts the file into an image.
Scanning is a suitable solution for all types of documents, including invoices, receipts, sales orders, customer records, patient files and financial reports, that take up space, time and money to file, retrieve and share.
What are the Benefits of Document Scanning?
Here are 11 benefits of document scanning that your business can unlock:
- Document Scanning Improves Productivity
Paper clutter reduces productivity and decreases workflow when employees have to scan, store, search, re-file and box up documents when trying to access important data. By scanning and storing documents in digital form, employees can instantly locate and retrieve electronic files without wasting valuable company time.
- Document Scanning Reduces Labour Costs
One of the key benefits of document scanning is the labour savings that occur when employees do not have to search for files or scan paper records in-house. By working with a service, your employees can focus on higher-value work to save your organization money and grow your business.
- Document Scanning Improves Customer Service
Having a document management process that includes scanning improves the level of service your organization can provide its customers. With the ability to search and cross-reference documents, your employees will be able to address business inquiries more efficiently to improve response times, customer satisfaction and profits.
- Document Scanning Reduces Office Space
Scanning and storing documents in-house fills valuable office space with equipment, filing cabinets, storage boxes and paper clutter. By working with a document scanning service, your business can maximize existing office space for money-generating activities or reduce office square footage to lower operating costs.
- Document Scanning Improves Security
Storing confidential paper records within the office or a storage space increases your organization’s risk of a serious security breach. By working with a professional document imaging company, your paperwork is scanned and converted into a digital format. Records are stored in a secure online file storage portal to maintain security and provide controlled access to authorized users.
- Document Scanning Enhances Collaboration
Another added benefit of file scanning is improved collaboration between employees. Whether working on- or off-site, multiple users can have real-time, simultaneous access to the same digital files or share and print documents when required. This instant access to information for collaborative purposes reduces unnecessary meetings, boosts productivity and promotes efficiencies within the workplace.
- Document Scanning Maintains Compliance Regulations
Compliance is a reality for most businesses, especially those in the healthcare, legal or financial industry. Having a document management system in place that includes imaging ensures that your company remains compliant with privacy laws and data regulations, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Your business will also be able to better maintain retention periods to comply with government record-keeping requirements. Digital records can also be organized, indexed and retrieved more efficiently when undergoing an audit process.
- Document Scanning Enhances Information Preservation
Storing business documents within the workplace increases companies’ risks of losing key data. By have a document scanning process in place, digital records are securely stored in a central location where they can be easily found and retrieved by authorized users.
- Document Scanning Improves Information Accessibility
With more people working remotely, finding fast and efficient document management solutions has never been more important. With document imaging, on- and off-site employees can search and retrieve digital documents from multiple locations no matter where they are working. Scanned documents can also be accessed by a number of users at the same time to improve information accessibility.
- Document Scanning Improves Disaster Recovery
Floods, fires and other environmental issues can damage or destroy business documents, which is why imaging is an essential part of any disaster recovery plan. When documents are converted into a digital format and secured in an off-site server, businesses can weather challenging circumstances with no employee downtime or disruption to work-related processes and activities. Document imaging also helps organizations ensure full regulatory compliance throughout a disaster, so they can focus on rebuilding their business and not worry about hefty fines.
- Document Scanning Reduces Paper Consumption
Transitioning to a paperless workplace by incorporating a system for document imaging is beneficial to businesses and the environment. Imaging services reduce the dependency on paper resources, which decreases deforestation, pollution and fossil fuel usage. By going digital, your business will also save money by consuming less energy and buying fewer printer products that harm the environment.
Improve Document Management with Blue-Pencil’s Scanning Services
Get the fast and secure digital access to paper documents and physical information that your company needs. To find out more about Blue-Pencil’s document scanning and scan-on-demand services, call our customer service team at 1-855-971-1955 or request a free quote.
No scanning project is too big or small. We can devise an affordable scanning solution to allows you to focus on your business and not your files.