One of the biggest challenges of moving to electronic document management is that you’ll have to scan in your current paperwork. This can take up a fair amount of time and energy. Plus, it requires you to purchase an efficient scanner. The good news is that DMS vendors like eFileCabinet can get you a good deal on scanners and answer all of your questions about switching to a paperless office.
Why You Need the Right Scanner
Most people understand that they need a scanner, but not everybody knows that scanners come in all different shapes and sizes. More importantly, not every scanner is equipped to take care of your scanning needs. Here are a few things you need to consider when purchasing a scanner.
Paper Size
Many scanners can handle legal-size paper, but not all of them are able to. If you require more specialized paper formats, such as A4, then you really have to double check to avoid purchasing the wrong scanner.
Resolution
Depending on what you’re scanning, you may need a scanner with a high resolution. For black-and-white paper documents, 200 ppi (pixel-per-inch) may be enough to give you a high-quality image. On the other hand, if you’re scanning photo images, you may require 600 ppi.
Two-sided Scanning
If you have a lot of documents that are printed on both sides, then you’ll need a scanner that can handle duplex scanning. Otherwise, you’ll be manually inserting papers all day long, which is a waste of time and money.
Automatic Document Feeder
If you’re mostly scanning 1 or 2 pages at a time, then you should probably purchase a scanner with a manual sheet feeder. But if you have a lot of documents that are longer, then a scanner with an automatic document feeder (ADF) is the better choice for you. The ADF capacity of scanners can vary widely. If your documents are often more than 150 pages long, then you might need an ADF capacity of 200. If your documents run a lot shorter, then an ADF capacity of 50 might be sufficient.
How Your DMS Provider Can Help You with Scanner Selection
DMS providers like eFileCabinet know more about scanning than many of the companies that sell scanners. After all, scanning documents is something we do a lot of, and our clients do the same.
DMS Providers Know the Products
Our experience and that of our customers helps us get to know the products that are available in the current market. There are different types of scanners available for every need. Some scanners even scan business cards or 3D images like coins.
DMS Providers Can Help You Save Money
If you purchase a scanner from eFileCabinet, then you have the ability to enjoy significant savings compared to the regular listing price. As a DMS provider, we offer less expensive scanners for our customers to help you make the transition to paperless document management.
What You Should Know About Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Scanning has become very sophisticated; for example, instead of scanning your documents as JPGs or PDFs that can only be viewed on the computer screen, scanners use OCR technology to turn the data into searchable text.
This is a tremendous accomplishment. Now you don’t have to read through the entire document you uploaded in order to find specific information. Instead, you can use a text search to find exactly what you’re looking for. This dramatically reduces the amount of time you spend on searching for information.
Take OCR to the Next Level with Zonal OCR
OCR is still limited. While it allows people to search and read documents with an external program, it doesn’t extract form data. Fortunately, zonal OCR can fill the gap.
Many organizations spend hundreds of man-hours entering data from forms into computer fields. This is commonly done with tax forms, legal documents, and health-related forms. But now you can use zonal OCR to teach your application to input forms for you.
If your company is frequently dealing with inputting data from forms, then zonal OCR technology can be a real timesaver for you. You’ll also save money because of the costs associated with those extra man hours. Now your employees can be doing more valuable things with their time than mindless data entry.
Talk to Your DMS Provider About Your Scanning Needs
Scanning is probably just a chore to you that has to get done. You should talk to your DMS provider about your scanning needs, because we can help you reduce the money and time you spend on scanning all of your documents. Scanning doesn’t have to be inefficient and time-consuming. With the right scanner and the right technology, you can transition to a paperless office with less time and effort than you think.
To learn more about OCR technology and which scanners are right for you, contact eFileCabinet. You can also provide your information on the form on this page to schedule your free 15-minute demo of our DMS software.https://content.efilecabinet.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Scanner-CTA-02.jpg