Are you thinking of transitioning to a paperless office? Well, it is a good decision as you can save many trees. However, it is a difficult task, especially for a company that has been running for decades. There could be many files and documents, decades old, in their holding.
However, these documents are important even after so many years and therefore have to be retained. For safe and efficient document preservation, companies can rely on a document scanning company. They scan all kinds of documents and turn them into digital records. They even offer bulk document scanning services, for scanning a large quantity of documents with high precision.
Among the documents, there may be confidential documents. Thus, you should do some preparation before approaching a service provider. You need to prepare some questions regarding their service in order to ensure quality output and safety of your data before you sign the contract. Let’s take a look at the questions you should ask to a document scanning service company when planning to use their services.
List of Questions:
A) To Analyze Experience: The first thing to understand while approaching a document scanning company is their experience.
The questions include:
- How many years of experience do you have in providing document scanning service?
- What is the biggest project you handled till date?
- Within what time frame do you complete your assignments?
- What is the average scanning volume per month?
- Is the company a member of the Independent Information Management Dealers Association (IIMDA)?
- Do you have expert employees for scanning bulk quantity of data?
B) Safety Assurance: When choosing document scanning services, safety is very important. Sometimes you need to give confidential files to them to convert to digital records. So, you should get an assurance from your outsourcing company regarding the confidentiality they can assure:
- What are the measures you have in place for maintaining the confidentiality of the documents?
- Do you have any particular rules for handling confidential documents?
- Are your employees expert in handling such files?
- Do you use any particular software to check the accuracy of the documents?
- What software do you use for document scanning?
- Do you hire any small outsourcing vendors for this process? (this is an important question as it affects the confidentiality of the client companies)
- What happens to clients’ original documents after scanning?
C) Enquire about the outcome:
- Do you use Optimal Character Recognition (OCR) for digitalizing documents?
- What image format of scanning images should client companies support?
- Will the digital document files support the existing IT system of the client company?
- Can the company’s existing document support system meet the paperless office requirements?
D) Estimation: The final question is about the cost of their service. If it is exceeding your budget, then search for another company.
The paperless office concept is gaining importance day by day. It is an environmental approach which does not harm the trees. At the same time, digitalizing all documents and files of the company helps the employees to easily locate any file they need even if it is an old document.
When outsourcing document scanning requirements, ensure that you will be working with an experienced and trustworthy document scanning company as they have to handle the most confidential documents of your firm. Thus, you should share all your anxieties before entering into a contract with the company. Thus, ask the above-mentioned questions, make the right enquiries and digitalize your company.
