Today’s digital age has revolutionized almost everything. One of them is the way we manage our document storage. And one way for storing these documents and preserve their integrity is through document scanning. If your company is already swamped with a lot of papers, then you can always get document scanning services.
Brief Background on Document Scanning
Document scanning is a method of converting paper documents into digital format. This process can be done by using either multifunctioning copiers, office supply stores, or even by using phone cameras.
But of course, we are not just talking about a single piece of paper here, especially when you are handling day-to-day transactions, which means that you have already accumulated voluminous amounts of paper that will be needing to be covert for you to secure the integrity of your documents.
However, if you did not choose to invest in the required training and software that will manage the resulting files, chances are that the quality of your files can be inconsistent, and it will be complicated for you to index and store the files. More often than not, there will be a lot of documents that an in-house document scanning staff can handle. Thus, even if the company has a good system in place, this can end up spending too much on employees that are doing repetitive tasks instead of having the job outsourced and letting your employee focus more on value-adding tasks.
Thus, if you choose to employ a professional document scanning service provider, you will be able to attain high-quality images for high-volume tasks.
Ways to Check a Good Document Scanning Service Company
If you are considering finally contract services of a document scanning company, then you should check if the following qualities are present before you engage their services:
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The document scanning service provider has integrity
It should be given, that the company should have inherent integrity in the services that they provide. This will make you confident enough that the company will be able to give you quality results.
The company should be able to provide credit references that you can call upon to check how the company works, and how it is to work with such a company. You should also ask about the quality of the images that they produce and if the file names that they are going to use will make sense with your organization and let you find information efficiently.
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The document scanning service provider should have proper experience and expertise
The document scanning service provider should be able to handle the types of documents that your organization has. There are some digital scanning companies that are specializing in certain areas, while there are also some that are providing scanning services in a broader range of organizations. That’s why you should really see to it that the document scanning service provider that you will choose can cater to the documents that you are handling.
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The document scanning service provider should exercise proper security in handling your documents
The documents that you want to be scanned are surely important documents that your company does not want to lose or even divulged to other parties. Thus, it is important that you hire a document scanning service provider that takes security and confidentiality very seriously.
You should check if the facility is properly locked, the access should be to limited authorized employees only, and check if they do criminal background checks on their employees.
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The document scanning service provider should have a great scanning technology
The hardware and software being used by the document scanning service provider should be updated. So, you should also check if they can be able to do their job in a timely manner, and if they can provide you with whatever file time that you will be needing like TIFF, PDF, JPEG, or others.
You should also check on the accuracy of the optical character recognition or OCR software and if they can provide cloud- or server-based solutions that will help in improving the information access of your company.
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The document scanning service provider should give you quality imaging
The main purpose of having your document scanned is to be able to preserve the contents that are in the documents. So, you should see to it that they are able to capture every image legibly and see to it that the information can be read and printed.
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The document scanning service provider should emphasize quality in their work
You know that you are engaging with a good document scanning service provider when it’s the main goal is to really make your job a lot easier and deliver results at the same time.
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It can provide consultation hours
The planning of your digitization process is important. Thus, the document scanning service provider should give you the right assistance in coming up with a logical plan, especially with the file-naming structure in order to make it efficient when you are looking for a certain file and to make the process as smooth as possible.
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Document preparation services
It is also a good signal if the document scanning service provider will not let you take out all of the staples, paperclips, and other things. Because this is supposed to be their job, not yours.
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Document destruction or return measures
The security of your document should be the top priority, thus the document scanning service provider should handle your documents properly and they should see to it that they give you enough time to approve the final output before your document scanning service provider gets a certified shredding service to dispose of the paper documents.
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The document scanning service provider should be able to grant you site visit requests
Even though there are restrictions put in place, a good document scanning service provider should not be hesitant in requesting a tour of their facility. This phase is important because this is one way for you to feel comfortable that your documents are being handled the best way.
Interesting Related Article: “The Top 7 Benefits of Document Management Systems“