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In today’s technologically advanced society, the question that many offices and businesses in London are asking themselves is not ‘should we scan our documents?’ but it is ‘how should we scan our documents?’ With a long list of advantages such as saving time, money and freeing up space, the demand for document scanning is very clear, but many are unsure about whether they should outsource their needs to a document scanning company or not.

At Pearl Scan, we have been providing nationwide document scanning services for over a 15 years, and have many happy clients from a wide range of industries that could convince you that outsourcing your document scanning is better, cost effective and meet best practices and guidelines kept up-to-date. But don’t just take their word for it – here is why you should leave your document scanning services in the hands of the experts…

Highly trained staff

While some businesses may need to scan and store simple paper documents, others will require more complex materials to be digitised such as microfiche and microfilm, invoices, surveys and more. In order to covert these files to accurately scanned digital documents, a large amount of industry ‘know how’ is required, as well as specialist scanning equipment. When outsourcing your document scanning you immediately are given access to experts in the area who can take care of your scanning services with ease, reducing the need to hire or train staff in this specific area.

No need to invest in costly (and bulky) equipment

Even if you decide to train your staff how to scan ‘in-house’, you will need to invest in expensive industry equipment, using up your valuable budget and taking up space in, what may already be a limited working area. At Pearl Scan we have a dedicated and state-of-the-art document scanning facility to convert all your files to digital the required file format, meaning you don’t need to pay for the extra expenses.

A tailored solution

As we are experts in our area, with a vast amount of document scanning experience in a wide range of industries, we are capable of providing a tailored scanning solution to all of our clients. Outsourcing to a scanning company means that you can enjoy a wholly professional service, every time.

Additional extras

Purchasing the necessary equipment and training your staff to scan your documents will fulfil your basic needs, but when using services from industry experts you are likely to be given a whole host of additional extras to help you with your document scanning and management requirements. We have developed Halogen, an intelligent document storage and retrieval software, which is given to all Pearl Scan customers free of charge.

If you know that outsourcing to a document scanning company is the right choice for you, get in touch with a member of the Pearl Scan team today to learn more about how the outsourced scanning services work.

Businesses hold on to thousands of pieces of paper and manual documents. And as time goes on, these accumulate until there’s multiple filing cabinets overflowing with neglected, but important, files that rarely see the light of day. Easily destroyed, thrown away or lost, these documents not only take up valuable room and cost companies thousands in time spent looking for them, but they are also at very serious risk of the elements.

Earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes and floods are all common. Even in the UK, we are prone to floods, and have even been known to have the odd earthquake. With the weather getting wilder, making sure that important documents are safe and secure cannot be underestimated. So how can you ensure your important, and confidential business documents are kept safe, should disaster strike?

Document management with Cloud

The only sure fire way to keep your documents safe is by turning to digital practices. Some businesses decide to store documents away from offices and disaster-prone areas, such as at external storage facilities. However even if you decide to go down that route, you can’t guarantee that these will be kept safe from catastrophe such as fire or flood. Digitising your paper archive and current documents using a specialist scanner however will remove the need for storage facilities by enabling them to be stored on widely accessible cloud.

It is always worth backing these documents though as a secondary precaution. Although clouds are secure, if their server goes down, it will stop access which can hinder a businesses’ productivity for a time. Using a central server that is either located on or off site however will provide businesses with a secondary platform to access and store data and provide peace of mind. These are great for both large and small businesses as they are cost-effective to maintain, but there is always the risk that they can be damaged from outside elements. In order to combat this, some service providers store data on multiple servers housed at different geographic locations. So even if one of the servers is destroyed, your documents will still be safe as they are stored on other servers too.

The main benefit of backing up your documents digitally is that when you’re back in business, you can quickly recover your documents and resume operations which minimise disruption to both customers and employees.

Looking to disaster proof offices in London? Find out more about document scanning from Pearl Scan.

What could go wrong with in-house scanning?

Going paperless is great, but having the right strategy while your organisation undergoes the transition is critical. Scanning technology has improved enormously over the past decade, making scanning easily one of the best ways to digitise information. Advances in optical character recognition, intelligent character recognition, and data indexing have led many people to believe that scanning bulk amounts of documents is a simple, easy process.

In truth, despite these advances, scanning documents in bulk can be a very tricky process. There are many reasons that companies choose third party scanning services like Pearl Scan to aid them in digitising their data.

Cost

Cost is generally the reason administrators cite for choosing to have documents scanned in-house. That is, they’re of the belief that they’ll save money by doing so. This is rarely the case.

A low end scanner is simply not good enough for digitising all of an organisation’s documents. A professional scanning service will have the most up-to-date equipment. Furthermore, most companies can’t afford to maintain multiple backup scanners in the event that their primary scanner breaks down. That leads to backlog whenever there’s an issue with the scanner, which puts a dent in productivity.

Additionally, having the right software to effectively and efficiently both scan your documents and capture data can be extremely costly.

Training and manpower

With this high end equipment and multiple types of sophisticated software in mind, the next problem that in-house scanning organisations run into is training. While innovations have greatly improved the equipment and software necessary to scan documents and capture data, knowing how to use that equipment and software is critical.
Who will train the employees who will be scanning documents? Can you afford to train your entire office to scan documents and index the data they contain? Or will you need to delegate the responsibility to a select few? Is there any department that is equipped to handle the extra work load?

Other issues

The safety and security of certain types of documents can be extremely important. Legal documents, medical records, and other paperwork that contain sensitive information need to be handled with care when capturing and storing that data. That’s not only to protect those to whom that information is personal, but also to protect your company from liability or regulatory concerns. Data is one of the most important resources your company has. Why not treat it as such and use a professional scanning service?

Find out how Pearl Scan can help with your document scanning needs.