This is part two of our four-part series on creating a paperless office. The transition is really quite simple, but it does require a sufficient amount of effort and preparation on your part. Vancouver Scanning Group wants to make sure that you are prepared. Step two in the process of going paperless is scanning. The scanning is probably the most important part of the transition because if things are not scanned correctly or with the right equipment, you’ll end up having to redo it and that can mean more money, time, and effort that you’ll expend.

The goal of a paperless office is to help you work smarter, not harder, so you should avoid wasting time and effort on services or equipment that don’t get the job done right the first time. At Vancouver Scanning Group, we have a full range of services for going paperless and can help you with anything that you need. We offer services like:

• Document Imaging – the most efficient and productive way to get the snapshot of your documents
• OCR (Optical Character Recognition) Services – when you need a data in the text format that can be edited
• Large Format Scanning – Blueprints, Drawings, and Maps are needed to be digitized as well
• Data Management – do we need to sort something out or to enter into the database?
• On-site Services – just an extra piece of security to perform our services at your location

In our business, we run into a lot of people who decide to go the DIY route in paperless office transitions. They assume that they can simply pay for their own scanner and complete the process in-house to cut down on their expenses. While we do admire people who are willing to undertake such a task, it’s a lot more work than you realize and we caution against it. Compared to the effort and expense that you will invest, bulk services like ours actually cost pennies on the dollar and will save you time and hassle, as well. If you worry about cost of our services, you can reduce it even more by preparing the documents for quick scanning. This includes removing staples and other attachments that may slow down the process. If it still a problem for you – pack your documents in the boxes, label them, and give us a call. Our courier will pick them up. Then we sort them all out and let you know how much it would cost. Please note that a consecutive file naming such as file0001.pdf, file0002.pdf is included at no charge as well as downloading the scanned results from our secured server and recycling of your documents if you don’t want them back.

One final tip about scanning in the paperless office process: buy a suitable small scanner that includes all of the features that you foresee needing in the future so that you can handle your incoming paperwork down the road. Bulk scanning is great for the initial process but in-house management should be feasible once you get the paperless system up and running. Ask us in case you don’t know what model would be most suitable for you.