What should you think about before going digital?
Even today, most companies still keep their most important documents on paper, without considering what happens if they get lost, misplaced or destroyed. The move to digital documents not only ensures that information is preserved, but also that it is easily accessible and searchable. Digitisation is a simple way to convert information stored on paper into digital data, but before starting the process it is important for our professionals to understand the needs of the company so that the electronic archive is tailored to the company's operations.
The purpose of digitisation must be defined
To build an electronic database, it is important to know what the client wants to digitalise their company for. Has the business moved to a home office and is therefore moving to a smaller office where they can't store old documents that are not used every day? Or do they feel that it is almost impossible to find the information they are looking for in paper documents, so they want to switch to an electronic document management system?
Whatever the goal, different expectations require different solutions in terms of how and to what extent documents can be retrieved. If a company simply wants to get rid of old documents, but for security reasons would like to organise them in a digital archive, it may be sufficient to provide a minimum set of retrieval data that will allow any document to be retrieved later. However, if the individual documents contain complex information that may be needed on a day-to-day basis, it is worthwhile to carry out a more extensive OCR scan so that the full content of the documents can be retrieved in our document management system.
Build an accurate digital archive!
In order to build an easy-to-use digital archive, you need to know exactly what type of documents the customer wants to scan and the system they want to use to retrieve them. For scanning contracts or invoices, a black and white scan at 300dpi resolution is usually sufficient, but colour and higher image quality scanning is also possible on request. In addition, when sorting documents into a database, different documents may require different organisation, whether they are retrievable by date, accounting reference, document number or even by partner name.
Digitisation on site or at our centre
If a company wants to create a digital archive, it is also worth thinking about the logistical aspects. Digitisation is always faster and smoother if it is done on our own premises, where we have all the tools at our disposal, but we can also carry out the necessary work at the client's premises if required. If digitisation is carried out at our headquarters, we will professionally box, label and transport the documents, so that we do not disrupt the day-to-day running of the company with unnecessary mess, while at the same time keeping the individual documents accessible during the processing process.
Of course, if the documents are still needed by the client after processing, we will return them, but if you wish to make a certified copy, we will professionally destroy the documents on request or help you to place them in the payroll archives.