Today, banks, hospitals, shopping stores and other product and service industries are going paperless. Your business can also go paperless by partnering with professional document scanning companies. With advanced equipment and high-end software, such companies can scan paper documents and convert them into the desired file format. In fact, some companies are adopting platforms that act as a virtual shelf known as document management systems (DMS). With DMS you can create, organize, store, access, alter and track information in electronic form.
A good DMS easily interacts with your business systems and can make business operations more effective and efficient. Therefore, before purchasing a document management system you need to take into consideration the following things. These include:
- Assess your organization’s specific document management needs – Determine the particular needs of your business when choosing a document management system (DMS). Never buy a DMS which cannot solve your storage problems. You should assess your business needs before choosing a document management system for your business. For that you need to engage your staff and make a list of current issues as well as needs and the projected goals of your business. Then, go for the DMS that fits what you are looking for.
- User-friendly user interface – You need to choose a document management system that offers an intuitive user interface (UI). Your system should be simple and efficient with crystal-clear commands and a nice visual design. You need to train your team before sending them off to use it. In addition, you should designate the staff who are less tech-savvy in your team to go through the manual to ensure that they understand how to operate the document management system. The employees who know the interface better than others should help others who are struggling to understand it.
- Choose a DMS with full integration capability – The document management system you choose should be able to integrate with your current software system, various platforms of email and the third-party programs that are used frequently in the business. You need to make sure that your new software can talk to your other programs. You need to consider implementing a social intranet, which incorporates document management, communications and scheduling into a single platform. The DMS you choose should be such that it allows employees to do more than one task just through the DMS from their desks. This will help save your employees’ time.
- DMS should enable users to collaborate seamlessly – The document management system you choose should allow users to access the files and work on them at the same time without interruption. It should enable users to collaborate seamlessly. You system must be able to save any changes that people make on the files simultaneously without having to log out and wait for someone else to complete their part. You need to ensure that the document management system catalogues all changes, and that it lists document versions in logical order. This will help your team refer to the previous instances quickly.
- Check whether your system captures the data intelligently – The system you choose should be able to capture data from a variety of input devices. Once the documents are scanned, the document management system should be able to intelligently extract and validate the data in the files. In addition, the system must be able to categorize and label information for fast and easy data retrieval. This helps increase productivity and save your staff’s time. Working closely with your vendor will help you acquire the best data intelligent DMS.
Partnering with a professional document scanning company eliminates the need to purchase a document management system for your business. Document scanning service providers have in place efficient document management and workflow systems to track the scanned documents and manage them efficiently.
