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Category Archives: Document Scanning

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Document Conversion: Frequently Asked Questions

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Whether you run a small family firm or manage a large corporation with multiple locations, document conversion can change the way you do business.

Organizing, storing, and sharing paper documents is not only inefficient, it leaves your company’s information susceptible to security breaches. Document conversion can save your company significant time, labor, and money by streamlining all your processes. This post will discuss frequently asked questions about document conversion.

When should I consider document conversion?

● When many people or departments need access to the same documents. If your business is spread across multiple locations, digitally stored documents make it easy for more than one person to have full access to a document.

● When the documents must be retained for a long period of time. These documents may include blueprints, maps, financial information, or employee records.

● When the documents are highly sensitive and/or vital to business operations and require backups. Document conversion ensures there is always a digital backup if a paper copy is destroyed.

● When storage costs exceed the cost of conversion. Consider not only the cost of storing documents at off-site facilities or cost per square foot for the space in your office, but the cost to find, retrieve, and re-store documents and the employee and client relation costs incurred when you are unable to locate a misfiled document.

What is the difference between scanning internally or outsourcing these services?

Scanning documents internally requires resources. You will need scanners, staff to prepare the documents for scanning, capture and imaging software, and staff for quality control after scanning. Consider the investment required for equipment, software, licensing, upgrades, and staffing to successfully scan your documents in-house.

Outsourcing document conversion means all the resources are provided for you. When you use Datamation, you will also have access to your documents during the conversion process and can track the progress of your project.

What does it cost to convert documents?

The cost to convert documents to digital images depends on several factors:

● How much paper do you need to scan? For reference, a standard bankers box full of paper costs between $130-$220 to scan. If you’re unsure, use our document scanning quote calculator for an estimate of your conversion costs.

● How much document prep is needed? Are the sheets full of paperclips, bindings, and tears?

● How many pages are included in each file?

● Does your company have any indexing or metadata requirements?

How do I select the best document scanning provider?

Make a list of your criteria. What are your company’s needs and wishes? Consider the following:

● Volume of paper. Can the provider accommodate the volume of documents within your timeframe?

● Do your documents need to be scanned in color, grayscale, black and white, or all of these?

● Is there a resolution requirement?

● Do the documents need to be searchable?

● Document destination. Are the documents going into a document management system?

● Image format. What format do the images need to be in?

● Do you need access to documents while the conversion process is taking place?

How do I choose a document conversion file format?

The format of your documents is usually chosen according to the ECM/ERP/EMR system where the documents will reside. The most common format is TIFF. However, if you’re using a document management system, check with your software manager because some prefer files in the PDF format.

Should I keep or destroy the documents once they are converted?

In most cases, the paper documents can be destroyed, but you should always check the legal requirements for your state and industry. Contact Datamation or your state archivist with questions.

This post is part of the Datamation Guide to Document Scanning.

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2018-06-12 00:00:00

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FERPA Compliant Cloud Storage: 5 Questions to Ask Before Switching to the Cloud

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When your district is considering a cloud storage solution to protect student records, there are several things to consider in order to take inventory of what system your district currently has, how well it is working, and what needs to be changed.

Increasingly, districts have been turning to cloud-based storage to manage their student records securely, and to maintain compliance with FERPA and other regulations. Successful implementation of the cloud takes careful planning, and a clear view of your districts goals. Here are five questions to ask when your district is considering the cloud:

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FERPA Violations Explained: Student Records vs. Directory Information

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Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, eligible students and parents have a right to privacy for student records. Students and parents must be able to access their records, and certain information within their records cannot be shared without written consent. There is a fine line between student information that can and cannot be shared, and school districts must take care to walk the right side of that line.

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What Goes into Manual HR Onboarding?

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This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.

Taking on new employees in any industry is a huge undertaking. An immense amount of paperwork is needed to comply with industry and governmental regulations, which means that for each employee, that paperwork needs to be printed, filled out, and collected. Between collecting this information and entering it into your company filing system, you’re talking about several days or often weeks before all of this processing is done, and this doesn’t include fixing the mistakes that come with manual onboarding and processing.

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Managing Your Files with an HR Workflow

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This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.

With each new employee comes a new, weighty file full of their personal records and hiring documents. The longer the employee is at the company, the bigger this file grows and the more space it takes up. If one of the documents within the file needs to be referenced, an HR employee has to go through that individual’s entire file to find that one piece of paper, which takes up time.

Onboarding each employee is a whole other story, and it involves a huge amount of paperwork that needs to be filled out, collected, and filed away. Just a few examples of necessary paperwork are medical records, banking information, emergency contact information, W-4s, I-9s, handbooks, job descriptions, references, and more. All of this information needs to be completed by the employee, and then processed.

Paper processes are simply too tedious and inefficient, but fortunately, an automated workflow easily solves all of the issues that paper presents. With an automated workflow and digitized records, employees can fill out this information using E-forms, or electronic forms, that eliminates the need to process paper. E-forms can be completed on computers, tablets, or even phones, and immediately integrated into the workflow.

Following completion, that paperwork enters the workflow. This means that all of the information that would normally have to be passed from desk to desk to be approved or entered into the system can be received and approved electronically. With less paper and less of the manual data entry that comes with the typical onboarding process, there will be less human error. Mistakes caused by human error cost your company valuable time and money. OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology is used to extract the data from E-forms and other digitized documents, eliminating the need for staff to enter important data by hand.

Besides onboarding documents, other processes that can be automated or put into a workflow (or both) include timesheets and leave requests. Employees can submit their timesheets as they are being pushed through the workflow for eventual approval, and automatically receiving those timesheets makes it easy for your department when it comes time for payroll. Employees can fill out leave requests using E-forms, and that information can be sent to be approved automatically.

It’s not just your department that will benefit from an automated workflow—your employees will benefit, and your customers will, too. With all-around quicker processes, faster access to files, and an easier onboarding process, everyone is happy, and better yet, they are able to focus on other things within their department that could use some work. You will quickly be able to see the benefits of automation throughout your entire company. Call Datamation (630) 321-0601 today to discuss the perfect plan for your company’s needs.

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2018-04-25 00:00:00

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Eliminate Paper Processing With Electronic Forms

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This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.

The staple of any Human Resources department is paper: paper employee files, medical records, evaluations, reports, payroll, and more. As a company grows, the amount of paperwork grows. It’s incredibly difficult to manage thousands of sheets of paper, much less utilize them to track performance, payroll, and so much more. Electronic forms, or E-forms, are designed to completely eliminate paper as a medium for a record, which also eliminates the need to process the paper altogether.

To use an example, let’s say that an employee needs to update a W-4 form. With paper files, this would require filling out a new form however often your financial situation changes. Then that paper would need to be processed and the information entered. Doing this for multiple employees as often as necessary takes time, and is also error-prone, which can be problematic down the line. E-forms make it easy to quickly adapt to ever-changing regulations without going through the entire process of filing and refiling.

Another scenario is the process of HR onboarding, which requires extensive paperwork. Whether you’re rehiring or hiring someone for the first time, it can be a paper nightmare. Gathering all of the employee records, job histories, resumes, evaluations, and work authorizations takes far too much time and effort.

The ideal situation would be that all of these documents have already been scanned, making them immediately accessible and easy to gather, or other documents can be filled out as E-forms, eliminating the processing of paper altogether. If some of your staff is seasonal or they work remotely, E-forms also make it easier to adapt to a wider range of employment types.

E-forms eliminate the middle-man, or in this situation, the paper itself. The information is entered straight into a computer, tablet, or phone, and because the employee themselves is entering the information, there is less error. Information can be entered anywhere, at any time, and involves zero data entry or processing—it goes straight into any workflow. This allows your business to save time that would normally be spent processing, space that would normally be used to store paper, and money that is spent buying paper and paying employees to process and enter information. The biggest benefit is a cohesive, seamless workflow that makes your business more efficient and airtight. With industry regulations in constant flux, E-forms make it easy to keep up effortlessly.

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2018-04-20 00:00:00

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Create the Perfect Solution with Human Resources Workflow

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This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.

If your company is currently working with paper documents and records, what does your workflow look like? Do you have one? With the increasing amount of paperwork needed to maintain compliance and industry standards, managing all of this paper is getting more and more difficult for HR departments everywhere. Datamation has provided businesses everywhere with the perfect workflow solution by capturing the data on all documents and records and placing it directly into an efficient, airtight workflow.

Automated HR Workflows can automate several processes that would normally take a huge amount of time and effort, including:

● Onboarding

● Performance reviews

● Payroll

● Applicant hiring and screening

● Employee training

● Travel and leave requests

These are just a few of the regular HR processes that can be integrated into a workflow. Using the data captured from paper documents or E-forms, all of the information that would normally have to be manually processed from a paper record can be sent to the right department at the right time, seamlessly.

One of the most important factors in HR processes is that any procedures that are carried out must be uniform. In a disciplinary situation, for example, in order to prevent any kind of dispute over how it was handled, it is vital that each employee involved is treated in the exact same way. If everything is handled in the same way, there is no room for dispute or even litigation. Having a consistent workflow ensures that everything is uniformly carried out.

Disciplinary actions are just one of the many processes that require consistency. The more uniform each and every task is, the better your company’s overall organization. Both document scanning and the use of E-forms can make this a reality for your company, and Datamation can easily provide you with a solution that fits your needs exactly—no need to spend money on things that don’t apply to your specific business.

Datamation provides a wide range of software that uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to capture the data needed to effectively perform within the workflow. Call Datamation today to discuss a plan that works for you.

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2018-04-20 00:00:00

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Protect Your Human Resources Files

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This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.

Human Resources departments in any industry serve as the touch point for the entire company. As the department that handles sensitive and personal documents every day, it is vital that these documents are kept secure at all times. While most processes are made harder when paper documents are being used, keeping paper records secure is particularly difficult.

How safe can your filing cabinets really be? Even when they’re locked, not very. Not only can they be broken into, or simply left unlocked, but they are also vulnerable to fire and flood damage. Paper documents are just inherently insecure, no matter how they are stored.

Besides being unsafe during storage, paper documents are liable to get lost during processing, or even in the mail. It’s so easy for anyone to accidentally leave a sheet of paper on a desk, where before anyone knows it, it is buried underneath more paper. With the security of your employees on the line, this is unacceptable.

So what do you do to ensure your file security?

Datamation has the perfect security solution for any business in any industry. One of the most secure options for your documents is ImageSilo, an entirely cloud-based storage system. ImageSilo provides five layers of encrypted security, only giving those with specific passwords access to sensitive documents. At the same time, documents can be found quickly with a simple keyword search, eliminating the need to spend valuable time finding that one document that you need. Another great feature of ImageSilo is that administration can track who saw a sensitive document, and when, giving your company full visibility if anything ever comes into question.

Scanned and digitally stored documents can also be placed into a comprehensive workflow that makes all of your business’ processes uniform, an especially important factor in an HR department. Having uniform procedures for disciplinary measures, training, onboarding, and more ensures the consistent treatment of employees, leaving little room for dispute. It also saves employees the pain of manually entering data, saving your company time and money in turn. Better still, because paper documents aren’t being mailed and passed around, they are less likely to get lost in the everyday processes of an HR department.

Scanning your documents with Datamation protects your sensitive documents in more than one way. They are protected by five layers of security from unauthorized viewing, and they are protected from getting lost or damaged by fire and flood. And at the same time, as long as you’re an authorized user, accessing those documents has never been easier! Never again will your employees spend hours per week searching through filing cabinets for that one folder or sheet of paper that they need—documents can be found with a few clicks and a keyword search.

Call Datamation today at (630) 321-0601 to make life in the HR department a little bit easier.

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2018-04-20 00:00:00

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Greater Efficiency in Human Resources Leads to Greater ROI

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This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.

In any industry, time is money. Usually, the longer something takes to do, the more it costs, and that includes any kind of Human Resources process within your business. Paper documents are outdated, inconvenient, cumbersome, and most importantly, they reduce your company’s efficiency. And with less efficiency comes a lower return on investment Datamation can provide your company with the tools it needs to implement a solid workflow that will save time, money, and effort while increasing your ROI!

In HR processes like onboarding, training, or payroll, the amount of information that must be shared between departments (originating with yours) is huge. With each employee having several types of documentation filed away, thousands of papers cross HR department desks each week.

The problem with paper is that it can’t be effectively processed in such large amounts. It takes a huge amount of time to find the paper document, pass it from approver to approver, and to finally refile it. The longer it takes to process information, the more money it costs your company.

The only way to drastically reduce processing time is to scan your documents into an automated workflow, eliminating the need to pass along each record or file by hand. This keeps documents from getting misplaced, and also gets them through layers of approval quickly and efficiently.

On average, an employee spends 19.8% of business time trying to find a certain paper document, adding up to about one full day a week. Think about how much more would get done if it took just a few seconds to find a document, and how much of that time could be directed towards targeting problem areas of your company. When you scan your files and store them electronically, any document can be found within just a few seconds with a simple keyword search. The ability to find documents quicker leads to quicker processes in general, which in turn vastly improves customer service. Your company’s time is valuable—make sure it is used wisely.

With the amount of information that crosses your desk on a daily basis, you don’t have time to search for documents that have gone missing or that are stored among thousands of other documents in a filing cabinet. The more time it takes to complete one of your many tasks, the more money your company is spending to keep those processes going. Integrating your documents into an electronic workflow with Datamation will make your company’s processes more efficient, more timely, and less cumbersome.

Call (630) 321-0601 today to discuss the perfect plan for your business.

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2018-04-20 00:00:00

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Use an Automated Workflow to Leverage Your Financial Data

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This post is part of The Datamation Guide to Human Resources Records.

Having total visibility into your company’s financial data is vital to future decision making and effective allocation of resources. Working with paper records that contain this information makes it incredibly difficult to gather and analyze the data that you need to make better choices. Scanning your financial documents and creating a workflow gives your company full visibility into every aspect of your finances, giving you the tools you need to make the best decisions for your business.

The process can be broken down into two steps.

Step One: Quantity Your Data

The first step to leveraging financial data is to quantify it. Having the right data on the number of employees, salaries, recent raises, turnover rates and comparisons, employee performance, and resource allocation can be extremely helpful in making important financial decisions. The difficult part of this is working with paper copies of all of these data sets is that gathering, compiling, and forming reports from hundreds of different paper sources takes time and often wasted effort.

With Datamation, those numbers and that original data can be quickly and accurately compiled into a clear report that can be faxed, printed, and distributed widely. There is no longer any need to spend hours or days searching through piles of documents to gather data, read it all, and make it into a comprehensive report—everything can be generated automatically and can be used immediately.

Step Two: Put Your Data to Use

After that data is gathered, its time to put it to use. Salary and performance data can be used to track talent within the company, or financial data can be mapped out to see where valuable resources are going, and much of this data combined can be used to assess your business’ general well-being and performance. From this data, your company can make well-informed decisions that are backed up by hard numbers.

It is becoming increasingly important for both employees and employers to have visibility into many of the company processes to measure both personal and company-wide progress. The generated data is helpful in looking at the company’s performance as a whole, its performance in specific departments, or both.

Wrapping It Up

Having accurate, comprehensive data for your company’s performance allows more confident decision making that is based on hard data. It also allows you to target areas that visibly need more work, or employees who may be performing well without being noticed.

Using paper documents, compiling all of the this data for your company would be difficult and time consuming. Datamation allows you to access all of your documents in just a few seconds, and can automatically generate the reports you need for your company to perform its very best.

Call Datamation today for a quote!

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2018-04-20 00:00:00

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