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Document Scanning for Businesses - A beginner's guide containing the top 3 ways in which document scanning can help your business.

In this article we are going to list the top 3 ways that document scanning can help your business. Obviously this can all depend on how much you are currently relying on paper based documents, but if you do, this is a great guide to get you moving into a better system that works within your company.

So let's get started:

1. Document scanning improves efficiency

This is one of the biggest and most proven facts about document scanning and this is the main reason that the majority of companies decide to go digital with their documents. When your documents are scanned and put into a digital document management system, they are much easier to find when compared to paper documents. Think about how long it might take to search through filing cabinets and storage to find the files that you need. Even if you have a good idea where they are, it can still take quite a bit of time especially if the files have not been put back correctly or are out of order. Searching for a document digitally means doing a quick computer based search which will take a matter of moments. The effects this can have on efficiency and productivity is excellent as more work can be done than ever before. Staff morale is also boosted as the result of a more interesting working day.
When you get your documents scanned by a professional document scanning company, the files are indexed in any way that you wish. This can be by a reference number, a client name or address or anything else that is relevant. That means that you can simply type in the appropriate information and the document should appear on the screen right away. This makes life considerably easier in the office.

2. Document scanning and digital management systems save money

There might be an initial cost to getting all of your documents scanned, but the costs that will be saved in the long run especially, and in some cases the very short term, is exceptional. As we mentioned in the previous section, efficiency is improved and more work gets done. This can mean that you wouldn't need to employ more staff and train them because of improvements in productivity. You will also find that the amount you spend on paper, printer ink and other office supplies involved will be cut dramatically as documents are no longer printer to be stored.
On top of this, if you are a company that stores their documents in a storage facility with ongoing monthly costs and retrieval fees, this can be cut out completely. Once the documents are scanned, indexed and onto your systems, they are in your own hands and can be accessed at any time, removing the need for storing the physical files and the costly, time-consuming retrieval. Law firms have already found that this system is excellent for helping with their document storage costs.

3. Document scanning saves space

When the need for physical, paper based documents is no longer an issue, the documents, and the cabinets and drawers they are located in, can be disposed of leaving you with more office space to use however you wish. In the modern, economical environment, space is more important than ever and every inch can count in a lot of cases. The extra space can be used for extra facilities or just to give more breathing room for your staff to work in, which I'm sure they'll thank you for!

Document scanning and digital management are modern day miracles for businesses in all walks of life, big or small and is also extremely cost effective. Here at Pearl Scan, we have completed projects for companies and organisations across a range of sectors including education, HR, legal and healthcare. If you'd like to find out more about our document scanning services and how document scanning helps businesses, visit our website or complete our form for a free online quote.

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The Scan-do People^tm


For more information feel free to give us a call: 
Nationwide: 0845 22 55 923          London: 0207 183 1885
Manchester: 0161 832 7991         Birmingham: 0121 285 1900

When it comes to document storage, there is nothing more important than keeping your information safe and secure.

In paper form your documents are susceptible to a range of fates;

Theft

Without effective security systems and alarms, your documents can be stolen easily. While you may not think anyone will take a pile of papers, thieves or even disgruntled ex-employees may take them along with other more expensive items just in case they can get something from them.

Loss

You may keep physical copies of files and documents in any number of places ranging from filing cabinets to boxes and folders. Once these documents build up to large numbers, it can get harder and harder to keep track of them. Even with a coherent filing system, documents can be lost or misplaced causing severe disruption to the system. Also, if they are not backed up then that file could be lost forever.

Damage

Ruffling through filing cabinets and passing documents between different people over a prolonged period of time will damage the quality of them. They could get frayed edges, rips and faded content and if you have the documents out on desks etc. they could suffer further damage such as coffee stains. Also, if there is a damp problem where your documents are stored, the papers will be some of the first things to be damaged.

What Can You Do To Protect Your Documents?

Here at Pearl Scan, we offer a workable solution to safeguard the documents holding important information in your office. We offer bespoke document scanning and management needs that you can tailor to suit the needs of you or your company. By having your documents scanned, you will safeguard them from the kinds of risks mentioned above. First of all, they can be password protected or encrypted so only the people who require access to the documents can see them. Secondly, they will be indexed and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processed to make them fully text searchable. It will then be simple to find the documents and practically impossible to lose them. Last of all, when your documents are kept in a digital document management system, they can be copied and shared continuously with no damage caused to the original file.

As you can see, scanning your documents onto a digital document management system is a far superior method to hard copy storage and banishes the safety and security issues. Document scanning is a smart move which more and more companies and organisations are taking to reap the benefits of going digital. As the old saying goes, it's better to be safe than sorry.

If you would like some more information about the document scanning and document management services we offer, get in touch today and we will provide you with a free, no obligation quote for your project. 

Request a Quote   |   Contact Us    |    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Scan-do People^tm


For more information feel free to give us a call: 
Nationwide: 0845 22 55 923          London: 0207 183 1885
Manchester: 0161 832 7991         Birmingham: 0121 285 1900

Do you work in Law? Do you often find yourself guilty of using too much paper? Could you benefit from having easily accessible documents?

Pearl Scan specialises in Legal Document Scanning for companies and individuals wishing to cut down on paper usage, document storage costs and time spent searching for documents.

Why would the Legal sector benefit from going digital?

In the legal sector, it may be required to keep legal documents for as long as 12 years. Through one client file alone, a huge amount of paper documents can be accumulated over twelve years, so it's easy to see why a lot of law firms pay to keep paperwork in storage facilities off-site. While this may seem like a sensible solution to keep on-site offices uncluttered, it is still pulling away a lot of money from the company budget each year. It could also take a long time to retrieve those files from the facilities when needed. Going digital can reduce those storage costs and increase efficiency in the office.

Let's Put Document Scanning in the Dock

Scanning your legal documents and implementing a digital document management system brings a lot of benefits to your office and workflow;

• When your documents are stored in digital format, you won't necessarily need to keep the hard copies which can be shredded and destroyed, removing the costs of off-site storage.
• Any files usually kept on-site can also be removed, freeing up space that can then be used more effectively or rented out.
• Without files and boxes lying around, your office can show it is more health and safety aware.
• With a digital document management system, you can access files and documents much quicker than you would if you had to request them from a storage facility.
• The digital document management system, if set up correctly, can increase office efficiency and speed of business.
• When office efficiency is boosted, so is staff morale and that can only be a good thing.

The Legal Document Scanning Process

Here at Pearl Scan, we offer an all-round quick and great value service for all of your legal document scanning needs.

Collection of your legal documents

With our fast and secure collection service, we can pick up your documents from anywhere in mainland UK the same, or next day, as required. We can also supply A3 size boxes to hold your documents if needed.

Document preparation

To ensure that your documents are safe to be scanned, we sort through them making sure to remove all fasteners such as paperclips and staples. This ensures a smooth and accurate scanning process takes place and makes for better quality scans.

Scanning your legal documents

The latest scanners equipped with ultra-sonic, double-feed and automated colour detection and image processing tools are used to scan the documents to your preferred format such as PDF, PDF Searchable, TIFF and JPEG. We scan paper as small as a till receipt up to A3 as well as large format drawings and plans in full colour, greyscale or black and white.

OCR Processing

We can apply Optical Character Recognition to your digital documents to make their contents fully searchable.

File Indexing and Categorisation

We can fully index your scanned documents using relevant data such as name, title, address, reference number or date.

ISO Quality Checks

All our services are fully accredited to ISO 9001:2000 quality assurance standards and, in addition to this, we have developed our internal quality-control procedures to ensure that the files meet required industry standards.

Supplying your digital data

We can supply your digital documents on a range of formats including CD, DVD and USB. If your data is confidential, we can encrypt your files using 128Bit encryption.

Secure shredding

Once you have approved the disks, your papers can either be returned to you, securely disposed of via environmentally friendly document shredding or we can store them for a further required period.

We also provide, free of charge, our search and retrieval service, Halogen, which was built with law firms in mind. To learn more about this service visit the Halogen information page.

So, there you have it, legal documents scanning has been found guilty of saving you money, time and space. To find out more about our legal document scanning services and the other scanning services we offer or to request a quote, get in touch and we'll be happy to help.
 

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The Scan-do People^tm


For more information feel free to give us a call: 
Nationwide: 0845 22 55 923          London: 0207 183 1885
Manchester: 0161 832 7991         Birmingham: 0121 285 1900

Searching for documents is tedious. We all know this, yet some of us continue to put up with it without looking for a better solution. Here at Pearl Scan, we have that solution with document scanning.

Nowadays, when we want to find out some information, we usually type a quick query into a search engine and get what we need in seconds. There's no need to search through books for the information because search engines are quicker and more reliable. Similarly, why should you search through mountains for paperwork for a document when you can have them scanned onto an online platform which can answer your search in seconds?

Who Can Document Scanning Help?

Anyone. Whether you work in HR, education, legal or just have a lot of paperwork to get rid of, document scanning is the solution you've been looking for.

What Does Document Scanning Involve?

1. With Pearl Scan, all you have to do is box up all of the documents you want to be scanned. On your part, it is that simple. We can even provide the boxes if you need them.
2. We then come and collect your boxes and take them back to our secure scanning and storage premises. The documents are prepared with the removal of paperclips, staples and anything else we don't want to clog up the scanners with. All of your documents are kept in the same order you have provided them in before being placed on the scanners.
3. Our state of the art scanners can scan documents in seconds, much faster than the average office scanner, meaning we have the ability to scan thousands of documents a day. This gives us a nice quick turnaround time.
4. Once the documents have all been scanned, the digital copies are checked as we like to be sure we're doing a good job for you.
5. We can then apply OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and convert the digital copies to searchable PDF, Word, Excel, CSV or XML. Depending on your preferences, the digital copies will then be placed on USB, CD or onto our document management software, Halogen.
6. Once the digital copies have been stored, we can either return your paper documents, store them or shred and dispose of them.

How Much Does It Cost?

Some people won't even consider outsourcing a document scanning company because they assume it will be expensive. Here at Pearl Scan we can provide you with great value document scanning solutions with document scanning from as little as a penny per document for large volume and we offer free, no obligation quotes so you can decide which service is right for you. Our experienced and friendly team will take the tedious work away from you. At the end of the day, you will be investing money into a long term solution which can help improve your day to day workflow and we have put a great value price on that.

How Can Document Scanning Help My Workflow?

• Finding a document will be simpler, just a click away essentially
• Less time searching for documents means more time doing the job you actually applied for
• We take away the hassle of scanning large volumes of documents yourself
• Your office will be free of boxes, folders and filing cabinets

Pearl Scan's document scanning and management solutions can help to make your working life easier. We're sorry we can't make sure your tea is on the table when you get home but we can ensure you still have enough energy to cook it. If you would like some more information or if you would like a quote to suit your needs then get in touch today or complete our online form by following the relevant links below.

Don't get caught in a health & safety trap, get your documents scanned today!

Just picture it...

You have an office full to bursting with filing cabinets, boxes and folders of documents. Everyday office life for you is pretty cramped. You have to manoeuvre around boxes to find the documents you need or even to get out of the office to make a cup of tea.

The documents continue to pile up because you need to store them due to company policy. One day you are trying to skip around the boxes to reach the filing cabinet to find one document you need. You feel like you're completing an army assault course until...

While you think you're perfectly balanced between a couple of boxes and a filing cabinet, you lose your footing, falling over the pile of boxes. Not only have you knocked documents all over the floor but you've hurt yourself too.

You've got two options here:

Number One:
Agree with yourself that perhaps the accident was your fault for not being careful or maybe you should have cleared the boxes away earlier in the week. You decide that you will just have to put up with the injury you sustained from the incident.

Number Two:
If you are seriously hurt as a result of the incident, you may be considering further action against the company. But what if, after months of trials and meetings and, ironically, filling out paperwork, the tribunal comes to the conclusion that the incident was your fault or another unsatisfactory result?

These scenarios don't just apply to you as an employee either. What if you have a visitor to your office who sustains an injury due to the document storage situation in your office or perhaps you are the owner of the business who may have to pay out for a health and safety breach claim.

Here at Pearl Scan, we have a safe solution to this problem. We provide document scanning solutions to companies and offices in Manchester, Birmingham, London and across the rest of the UK. We can digitise all of your documents and make them easily searchable for better office efficiency. That's not all! We can also securely shred your documents once you are happy with the digital copies. Once the documents are shredded, they will no longer take up space in your office or cause a health and safety hazard. Like that old saying goes, 'It's better to be safe than sorry' and we completely agree.

If you would like some more information on the document scanning services we offer, get in touch today before you end up taking a trip to A&E.

Request a Quote   |   Contact Us    |    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Scan-do People^tm


For more information feel free to give us a call: 
Nationwide: 0845 22 55 923          London: 0207 183 1885
Manchester: 0161 832 7991         Birmingham: 0121 285 1900