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!)