Document Scanning – Catch the Digital Filing Fever

In the past, every element of a business or personal life, such as bills, invoices, receipts, letters, memos, medical and legal records, surveys and documents of all types were generally printed on A4 paper and stored in lever arch files or in filing cabinets. This meant that every piece of information had to be accounted for in a filing system, and it was very easy to misplace or lose documents and files which are essential to the smooth running of everyday life. Now that the digital age has arrived and most companies and individuals are able to run their businesses and lives online electronically, some of the clutter and hassle of paper filing has been removed. However, it is likely that many will still have a massive backlog of insufficiently filed documents and records that are cluttering up space and costing money to store and sort, and we are still being flooded by posted paper documents of all kinds from those who have still not moved into the digital age. Luckily for the stressed businessmen, secretaries and accountants everywhere it is now possible to quickly and easily convert all of your old paper documents from your filing system into digital files thanks to Document Scanning Technology. This is not only cheap but will revolutionise and unify your digital filing systems and allow you to finally free up space and money you were previously dedicating to paper filing systems. But how does the Document Scanning Process work, and what kind of benefits can I expect to experience as a result of Document Scanning? Here are the basics of the system and the benefits of digitally filing your documents.

Document Scanning – The System and the Available Choices

The majority of documents scanned come in the A4 format, but the system is not limited to this size. You can scan your documents so that they are stored in an editable format, such as a Microsoft Word or Excel document, giving you the flexibility to make adjustments and amendments to older documents, or add your own notes and annotations, as well as copy text and information into a new format should you so wish. You can also scan your documents into a PDF or TIFF image file and because of the universal application of all of these formats you are ensured continued functionality and compatibility of your scanned document files. If you choose the PDF file format, viewable in the free to download Adobe Acrobat Reader, you will have access to fully searchable content and word identification which will allow instant document analysis and make it incredibly easy to find a specific phrase or passage. This is all thanks to the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) process which is applied during scanning and fully conforms to the word searching techniques of the Adobe PDF file format.

If you want to scan more than just plain text documents, and require photos or plans to be added to a digital database from paper copies then you can have them scanned in full colour at up to 300dpi, giving impressive image clarity and allowing quick and easy access to drawing and photos within the same system as your text documents should you so choose.

Scanned Document Storage and Transport

Because of the flexibility and consistency of the digital documents that result from the Document Scanning process, you can have your documents transferred to almost any digital storage format and device, from USB and Hard Drive storage, to DVD, CD and other digital media formats. This transfer can occur at the time of scanning, or later at your own convenience because of the infinitely replicable nature of a scanned document. If you have your own electronic filing software the scanned documents will be able to slip right into your existing system, though there is an easier alternative, especially for those who lack an existing system and don't want to spend money on complicated but limited filing software. You can store your documents online and make them accessible over the internet thanks to the Online Document Storage system available. This organises and files your documents in a customisable environment accessible through any computer with web access and a web browser, allowing you truly mobile access to your scanned documents. Links can be established between relevant documentation, and the speed and ease of access as well as the simplicity of the interface is something that most should consider. With the Document Scanning process and the Online Document Storage system you will no longer need to store your documents in your business or home, or even maintain and pay for the upkeep of a server or network of computers. The Document Scanning process and the resultant universality of the file formats can transform the way you file and store your important paper documents, allowing convenience and security at an affordable price.



Further Document Scanning Information

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External Hard Drive - OffSite Tape Backup Strategy and Planning - Supplementing Hard Drives

Many businesses choose to implement an offsite data backup plan utilizing LTO, DLT, or VXA tape drives. These strategies are great for long term data archiving, but from an operational perspective including broken tapes, worn out tapes, not able to thoroughly test tapes, backup strategies are quickly changing. When it comes to the total cost of ownership (TCO) an offsite tape backup plan is not the strongest or best solution to data backup and recovery. Daily or even weekly tape rotation is a very expensive process and often costs upwards of $60,000 per location per year.

Improving Your Backup Plan

Supplementing your offsite tape data backup and storage plan with hard disk drives or disk-based servers will not only provide your business with the greatest amount of `recovery insurance,` but you will find that the TCO and overall costs associated with your off site data backup plan will decrease. Many businesses choose to implement NAS storage servers to decrease the recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) as well as reduce the amount of tape backup from daily to weekly or monthly archiving. This `belts and suspenders` strategy ensures that business goals for offsite backup are met while serving to drive the business forward.

Data backup strategies are like insurance policies, do you have enough coverage? Will your fire insurance replace your lost data? There are many advantages to implementing an fireproof hard drive disk backup and offsite tape approach – this includes mitigating data security risks, improving operational and disaster recovery RTO and RPO and reducing overall operating expenses across your business enterprise. If a fire, flood, employee theft, equipment failure, virus, or the more common operator error were to cause you to lose all of your business data, how soon would your business be able to recover? Or would your business recover at all? According to research by the University of Texas, only 6 percent of companies suffering from a catastrophic data loss survive, while 43 percent never reopen and 51 percent close within two years. Online backup can`t provide complete and reliable protection or rapidly restore your server. Industry analysts agree that a traditional external hard drive backup works better than tape based backup in almost all aspects except in disaster recovery. Clearly there is a need for a new protection strategy! When you compare the pros and cons of hard drive backup vs. tape backup it`s easy to see the comparison winner is disk.   
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Pearl Scan Solutions - Document Scanning and Document Management - Pearl scan is a provider of document management and document scanning in the UK. The company provides top quality data capture and microfilm/fiche scanning based in Manchester & London....  
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Document Scanning - Scancapture offer a professional document scanning facilities for Public Surveys, Staff Surveys and Reporting Results....  
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