We scan a lot of documents for our customers.  We also have a lot of EDM software installed at customer sites and we still find that it is almost never the best business decision to scan all documents. All companies that roll out an electronic document management system must face making this decision. 

Even with falling software, hardware and digital storage prices, records can still be maintained more inexpensively in a commercial records center.  No matter how inexpensive the equipment and software gets, scanning still requires a human being to prep documents by removing staples, repairing tears, etc, feeding the document feeder, doing quality control, etc.  Of course wages aren't getting any cheaper.  To justify the expense of scanning, you must either capture the documents before they are printed or before they are used.  Most of the savings recovered in the use of electronic document management are gotten during the first month or so of that documents life.  This is the time when it is being handled, transported and shared the most. 

Unless a record has historical importance or is currently in work, I do not recommend that it be scanned.  I recommend managed storage in a commercial records center at that point.  Of course, goal should always be to capture documents electronically before they are printed or worked with.

In the next post we'll discuss how to capture documents as early in the lifecycle as possible.

 (Ancient Papyrus document.  Even though it isn't in a workflow right now, I would say this should be imaged!)

The short answer is scan the active stuff and store inactive records.  

Scanning allows for easy sharing and manipulation of documents.  Collating, stapling, filing, pulling records and interoffice mail are completely eliminated when records are scanned.  Additionally, documents are easily shared after they are scanned, so, organizations with several locations can improve efficiency considerably with scanning and EDM. 

Records that are very active and require a great deal of handling offer the quickest return on investment for scanning.  

Studies we have done with our customers show that to pay a bill in the typical accounts payable process costs $8 - $12.  Filing, collating, various invoice and purchase order approvals, copying and other tasks drive this cost up.  Scanning can reduce this cost to less than $2.    We find that companies often cannot claim prepayment discounts with vendors because their accounts payable processes is simply too slow to make the 1% net 10 or 15 deadline.  One food wholesaler we helped institute scanning saved over $2,000/month in prepayment discounts alone.

Records that are scanned require no filing. (Duh)  One wholesaler and leaser of industrial equipment we help, (if you’d like to talk to them about us, call me and I’ll put you in touch with them) creates about 4,000 work orders or sales tickets per day, each of which is proof of a sale and a lease agreement.  It used to take an army of clerks to file each of these orders.  Now the records are scanned or imaged.  They are also indexed (tagged with keyword search terms) with transaction number, date, customer name, etc. so they can be located easily.  This process is saving the customer over $7000 per month.

To sum up, if there is a great deal of sharing records, if it takes more than 1 or 2 people to complete a record (payment approvals is a good example), if there is a lot of filing, or pulling records, consider imaging/scanning your records.