How to Evaluate Document Scanning Services - Ricoh Scanners (2024)

Find the best scanner service for your business’ needs

It’s easy for any business to end up with piles of paper documents. What once fit into a single filing cabinet can soon overwhelm your office space. You can digitize all these documents yourself if you have the right tools and enough time. But if you want to process many documents fast, you may also wish to consider document scanning services.

These scanner services assist businesses by digitizing documents in bulk. Their processes enable speedy shipping, scanning, and return or destruction of the originals. That said, your documents contain essential, and sometimes confidential, information about your business. You need to know the company you work with will treat your documents with the highest level of care. Here’s what to look for in a document scanning service to ensure you get the best results.

7 essential qualities for document scanning services

Many companies perform scanning as a service. Their offerings may seem similar at first. Yet certaincharacteristics have a major impact on how well their services may be a match for your company’s needs. Here areseven to weigh as you begin your search.

1. Accuracy and quality

If you’re sending documents off to be digitized, you should only have to do it once. Look for a partner thatshows excellence in creating scanned documents that are accurate and legible. They should have strong measuresin place to spot and correct mis-scans. Every page should be accounted for and easy to read.

That said, sometimes too much quality is a bad thing with digital files. Higher-resolution scans create largerdigital files. Your document scanning services partner should help you find the resolution and file types thatwill work best while minimizing storage requirements.

2. Security and compliance

Only work with scanner services that boast strong security features. This is equally essential for each step ofthe process, from the initial physical document transportation to how their digital counterparts are returned toyou.

Does your business have any special compliance requirements? Abiding by HIPAA for working with protected healthinformation is one common example. If so, ensure your document scanning service’s processes are fully compliantfor the documents they will handle.

3. Scalability

You may have a few legal boxes full of papers to work through. You may have whole record rooms. Either way, youshould be able to count on the same level of care and attention from your document scanning service.

Look for scanner services with a good level of scalability. This means you will be able to build and maintain abusiness relationship with them even as your own company grows. You will also be able to count on that samecompany to handle various needs throughout your business cycle.

4. Turnaround time

Shipping your documents to an offsite service means you can’t access those documents. The longer you have towait for digital copies, the more likely you are to need their contents but not have them. Look for documentscanning services that offer and deliver on speedy turnaround times.

The specific amount of time each scanning task takes will likely vary. The number of pages and proportion ofunusually sized documents may mean some batches take longer than others. Get quotes from multiple scannerservices to see how long you may need to spend without easy access to your documents.

5. Storage and access

Once your documents are digitized, how will you access them? There are many ways to send digital files betweenbusinesses. Make sure you know which ones your document scanning service supports and which will work best foryour own business case.

If you want speedy and easy access from anywhere, look for a service that lets you access your digitizeddocuments via browser. If you don’t want your documents ever to be accessible online, you may be able to requestsecure shipping on physical media such as storage drives.

6. Secure disposal

You probably don’t want the same piles of paper documents back in your office and taking up space at the end ofthe scanning process. But you don’t want them all sitting intact in a recycling facility for anyone to read,either.

Your document scanning service should be able to shred or otherwise securely dispose of paper originals. Thatsaid, the service should also let you earmark any documents you do want to retain in their original form. Thiscan come in handy for foundational documents and any other papers you wish to keep as part of your company’shistory.

7. Price

You’ve accounted for all the other features you need. Now it’s time to see how the document scanning servicescost will impact your company’s bottom line. Note that not all scanning services will provide flat estimatesahead of time. Fortunately, all you may need to get a quote is a page count estimate and what kind of scans youneed.

Working with scanner services can be a convenient way to tackle backlogs. However, if you don’t update yourapproach to your workflow, you may need to pay that scanning services cost over and over again. Considerinvesting in your business’ own document digitization capabilities as well, so that you can begin scanningin-house as you go.

Our recommendation: RICOH fi-8170 Document Scanner

Those in the market for document scanning services have no shortage of options. We take great pride in havingspent the last 50+ years researching, designing, and developing some of the most advanced and powerfulelectronics in the world, including our professional grade fi and SP series of scanners.

Built to purpose for the most demanding document handling jobs, fi and SP scanners are capable of processingtens of thousands of pages per day at the highest levels of accuracy. Their intuitive integration capabilitieswith all existing work suites minimize time-to-value for businesses looking to invest in tools that will paydividends for years to come.

The RICOH fi-8170 Document Scanner was created to be a powerful tool on its own or the flagship of a wholescanner fleet. Its remote distributedscanning capabilities offer a practical way to digitize and distributeyour business documents. Deep integration with PaperStream NX Managercuts the need to ship documents betweenlocations while reducing costs. It also increases instant access to critical information. Click here tolearnmore or shop the rest of our production scanner line.

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