Doylestown Document Management

Everyone knows how bad the economy was this past year and this downturn caused many companies to put their IT strategies on hold. Others however, saw this as an opportunity to be proactive and begin implementing automation and moving forward with new ways of getting the job done. As we head into the New Year, look at these strategies to think about re-organizing and working smarter. continue reading...

1. Be proactive! While companies need to react quickly to industry trends and changing economic and world environments, they also need to formulate strategies for the future. Think about creating a team who will think ahead and make sure the company will get where it wants to go in the next few years.
2. Follow a business strategy roadmap. Don’t just jump blindly expecting the technology to magically work for you. Build a business strategy that will clarify and outline the issues you’re trying to solve. Be sure that your company is starting with a good foundation for their infrastructure that can be further built upon.
3. You don’t have to implement everything at once. In fact, it is much more practical automate your business according to a strategic plan—focus on what needs attention first. Look at your industry specific government regulations to see how they expect a company to handle information management.
4. Don’t wait to “play it safe” and have other companies experiment with new technology. If you stand back and wait for another company to make the first step and prove automation as a valuable investment, the next generation of technology will already have hit the business world. Your company will remain one step behind other innovating companies and will lose competitive edge.
5. Think about your return on investment (ROI). If you’re worried about staffing and hiring issues, realize that once automation is implemented, people used to working manually with documents can be re-deployed to other valuable tasks. While automation still needs staff to run it, the amount of personnel can be greatly reduced. This feeds right into the ROI. Create a flowchart and see how much faster your product can hit the market with new technology. That’s savings.

Document and content management involves the transformation of paper files into a digital format. A document management system can cover areas such as security, disaster recovery, collaboration, and printer management.

If an organization develops and maintains its content and documents effectively, the information that is in your system can save your company time and money. If not handled properly, however, content and documents can decrease your company’s productivity.

The migration from paper to pixels has changed more than a few companies. The task can involve major changes to workflow and transform your company into the best it can be. Digging through old documents and records can be a long and exhausting process. With a document management system, all of these troubles can be taken care of and your business can become much more organized. continue reading...

Today there are millions of MFPs populating workplaces in every industry. Organizations find MFP scanning appealing because they can combine scanning, copying and printing all on one device. These all-in-one devices allow companies to save money by getting rid of unnecessary technology, increase productivity because of higher page per minute output, and provide a way to add hardcopy documents into their electronic workflows.

With the growth of MFP scanning come questions about how best to utilize and how to take advantage of all the qualities a MFP can provide. Here are a few pointers to take the stress out of implementing an MFP into your document workflow.

· MFPs are not restricted to small-size documents! The MFP document feeder may restrict you to 50 or so pages, but by hitting the “scan more” button you can continue scanning for any number of pages.

· Scanned images from MFPs will not be larger file sizes than images from scanners. MFP scanning software includes image compression so even color pages can be reduced to as little as 200 KB per pages while retaining sharp text and good image quality.

· You can create searchable PDFs with MFP scanning. MFP scanning software allows you to create and save PDFs that are then available for text searches within documents and network folders. continue reading...

Did you know, on average companies have to hire an additional employee for every 12 filing cabinets simply to maintain organization. This is just the beginning of what it costs to manage paper documents in an increasingly digital world. Whether you are looking for a way to improve personal or professional productivity, capture and distribute paper-based information amongst workgroups, departments, and small businesses, or even blend multiple business applications from networked printers/copiers or scanners, Document Scanning Solutions can securely transform paper documents into business value.

Paperwork is paper that works… Document scanning solutions turn everyday tasks into routine processes that take less time, involve fewer steps, and allow employees to accomplish more. Enabling document scanning services stop the inefficiency inherent in paper files and achieve greater productivity, better information management, and lower overhead expense-a benefit to any bottom line. continue reading...

Printers and scanners are an absolute necessity in every organization, business, office, educational institution, and more. The numerous brands and features of printers and scanners can vary anywhere from the numerous accessories, to the simplicity of black and white, color or both depending on the intended job.

Printers are available for specific purposes such as printers for mobile receipts, mobile thermal labels, network thermal labels and more. While some scanners can also be used for specific scanning purposes of photos, business cards, documents, and checks. Although some machines can accomplish both jobs of the printer and scanner.

Printers

The print preview option works out to be a great advantage as it helps a person to see how everything would look like in final, hard copy. Another advantage of printers is allowing storage of all the information in files for future reference with an ease and peace of mind that nothing important will be lost.

Laser printers, print quickly while, inkjet printers are cheaper they are slower. Yet, both printers use ink cartridges and will need to be changed. A good sensible solution to dealing with constantly changing cartridges is to use reusable cartridges.

Scanners

Scanners are machines you can scan just about anything and view it in soft copy on your laptop or computer. Meaning important documents like proof of purchase receipts, photos, contracts, and articles from newspapers or magazines, can be scanned and shared over email with friends or colleagues. continue reading...

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has made great progress in the fight for paperless offices. It’s become a staple component in just about any document management software.

So what is OCR? Wikipedia offers this definition: “…the mechanical or electronic translation of images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text (usually captured by a scanner) into machine-editable text.” (2008)

Fundamentally, a computer reads the document and creates a library of searchable information. This type of application allows an EDM solution the opportunity to build a database of text, making the search for usable information within and across documents much easier.

While many argue the accuracy levels for OCR engines can reach 98 or 99 percent, small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) may find this hard to achieve with most commercially-available software. Many variables can affect the accuracy levels of output, ranging from document condition to readability.

Where problems can begin to occur is when OCR is not applied to the text contained within the scanned document, but used to lift index values themselves (e.g. customer name, number, etc.). This becomes dangerous if there are no quality assurances or stop-loss measures in place. If that is the case, it becomes likely a document will be misplaced due to a character being off here or there. continue reading...

Distributed capture has evolved with today’s business processes to incorporate paper-based information into digital workflows. Document imaging technology gives businesses the advantage to increase the amount and quality of information included in critical business systems. The integration of multifunction peripherals (MFP) have made document scanning available for the average office worker.

Whether a business wants to utilize a new distributed capture system or making improvements to its existing system, there are four key ways to ensure scanning processes are optimized to meet business needs.

Work with Your Existing Office Infrastructure.
With today’s emphasis on reducing environmental impact and cutting economic costs, it has never been more important to utilize existing IT investments in new ways. Businesses can significantly increase the value of existing systems by eliminating the need for paper-based workflows and file cabinet document storage. continue reading...

The average office worker spends up to half of their workday searching for simple information! No wonder it’s hard to increase production. A digital document storage system will not only increase worker productivity, but also reduce company costs.

Lost documents create ripples of inefficiency throughout any organization. Although small and medium sized organizations are often hit harder than large corporations, the effect is devastating across the board. In paper-based environments, digital document storage is a great alternative. These systems provide an easy-to-use, secure document storage alternative to ultimately boost productivity and reduce operating expenses. continue reading...

In 1975 a Business Week article discussed how the personal computer revolution would ultimately lead to a paperless office.  In 2009, thirty-four years later, the information contained in paper form has changed, but businesses are increasingly inundated with paper records.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports:

· The average office worker goes through 10,000 sheets of copy paper a year.

· Each employee in a typical business office generates 1.5 lbs of waste paper per day.

· Reducing paper production by a ton saves the equivalent of 4,100 kWh of energy and 7,000 gallons of water.

Every aspect of the paper storage process adversely impacts a business’ budget and the environment as a whole.  These financial drawbacks of paper storage include the purchase of paper, personnel resources spent filing and finding documents, increase of square footage for physical file storage and recovery from flood or fire damage. continue reading...

In today’s society everyone strives to become the boss whether it’s the manager, president or CEO. People tend to discount the little people like the secretary, assistant and file clerk. These employees are essential for making sure every-day tasks are completed smoothly and efficiently, yet businesses insist on making life harder for them by keeping with a paper-based office.

Take for example a department assistant at a state university. He or she organizes everything from adjunct teacher files, instructor contracts, course schedules, money orders and background checks. For each type of document there are separate filing storage cabinets.

Also take into consideration the issue of employee manuals. Every task required for a job is provided in the inconvenient form of a 4-inch binder categorized haphazardly in a conglomerate of miscellaneous information. continue reading...