As most businesses look to expand their presence online and choose to carry out business operations digitally, finding ways to achieve effective document digitisation has never been so important. Businesses are now looking to digitise entire archives to keep up with their competitors, whilst other organisations continue to grapple with the complexities of using both manual and digital documents in their day-to-day tasks.
As more businesses recognise the advantages of converting documents into digital formats, they are also discovering that the digitisation process itself can be rather inefficient if not carried out correctly. Businesses scanning high volumes of files might be rather disappointed with how long it takes for the process to be completed – and rightly so – with the right technology and expertise document digitisation can be a very quick and painless process.
The Advantages of Offsite Scanning
For reliable and efficient document conversion processes many businesses now chose to use offsite scanning services to undertake their digitisation projects for them. With an offsite scanning partner businesses can be assured that their documents are going to be suitably looked after throughout the entire digitisation process, and that they will be left with an end result that they can be proud of.
In a busy office environment files can easily be misplaced during the scanning process, as it is almost impossible for employees to continually monitor all of their documents. What’s more, often large scale scanning projects will wreak havoc for a company’s record management system leaving employees unsure about how they can access their recently converted documents.
A professional scanning company will be able to give a business that all important control and calm during the scanning process, which is sometimes hard to achieve in a crowded office space!
To learn more about the benefits of offsite scanning check out our post: Scanning Bureau Vs Office scanning
Malicious Intent
Furthermore, documents might also be maliciously taken by an opportunist employee or an external perpetrator.
Digitisation is often a complicated and lengthy process and so it would be quite easy for a perpetrator to take a confidential document unnoticed. This is an even greater danger for businesses that do not have an effective record management scheme.
A first rate scanning facility can monitor the progress of a business’s documents from the moment they arrive at the facility for digitization, and have a reliable tracking system in place so that if documents are misplaced they can be found quickly.
Environmental Risk
When employees scan documents they expect their digital copy to be of the same quality as the original, but unfortunately this is not always the case. There are a lot of environmental factors that might lead to digital copies being of a lower quality than the original.
In some cases digital copies might even be completely illegible due to these environmental hazards and of no use to employees at all. Of course its not always environmental factors that are to blame; human error is another likely culprit especially if employees are having to use a scanner they are unfamiliar with or are scanning high volumes of documents at any one time.
Professional Scanning Facilities
At an offsite scanning facility only professional onsite staff will be handling their clients’ documents during the conversion process. This onsite team will have the expertise to make sure all their clients receive digital copies of only the highest quality.
A facility should also be able to return a business’ digital files in the format of their choice, for example this could entail transferring the converted information onto a DVD, USB or HDD. A competitive scanning facility will be familiar with all the different possible scanning arrangements that a business might require. They should be able to cater for all a business’s scanning needs.
A professional scanning company can offer their clients vital information on how to store and manage their digital documents after they have been successfully converted. Some businesses might even chose to permanently store their scanned documents offsite with a record management facility, eliminating the stress of managing digital documents once and for all.
