Almost every office that faces a stack of banker’s boxes has the same first thought: we have a scanner, so why not have someone do it in-house? Sometimes that is the right call. For a large backlog, it usually isn’t, and the reasons have less to do with the scanner than with everything around it. This post lays out what a scanning project really involves, where in-house projects tend to go wrong, and how to decide.
What a scanning project actually involves
Scanning is the visible step, but it is only one of several:
- Preparation: removing staples and clips, repairing torn pages, unfolding and flattening, and sorting files into a consistent order.
- Capture: feeding pages through a scanner at a suitable resolution, handling mixed sizes, double-sided pages and fragile originals.
- Quality control: checking every image for skew, blank or missing pages, poor contrast and cut-off text, and rescanning what fails.
- Indexing and naming: giving each file a consistent name and searchable data so the record can actually be found later.
- Secure handling: keeping confidential files controlled before, during and after scanning.
- Delivery and retention: getting the finished files into a secure, backed-up location, and deciding what happens to the paper.
Where in-house scanning tends to go wrong
- It takes much longer than planned. Office devices are designed for occasional use, and staff scan between other jobs. A project that a production operation finishes in days can drag on for months.
- It pulls your people away from their work. Every hour spent prepping and feeding pages is an hour not spent with patients, clients or billable work.
- It wears out your equipment. Office scanners and multifunction copiers aren’t built for sustained high-volume feeding. Jams, service calls and early replacement land on your budget.
- There is rarely a second check. Without a quality-control step, missed pages and unreadable images tend to be discovered years later, when someone needs the file and the paper is gone.
- Staff aren’t specialists. Your team scans occasionally. A scanning company does it every day, and has already met most of the problems a large project throws up.
- Indexing is inconsistent. Different people name files differently, and the records become hard to search, which defeats much of the point of scanning.
What a scanning company brings
- Speed. High-speed production scanners with automatic feeding and double-sided capture, run by people who operate them all day.
- A repeatable quality-control process. Images are checked and defective ones are rescanned before the project is signed off.
- Consistent indexing. One naming and indexing scheme applied across the whole project.
- Controlled handling of confidential records. A documented process for custody, access and destruction of the originals.
- Accountability. If a page is missed or a file is indexed incorrectly, someone has to answer for it. When a provider does the work, accuracy is part of what you are buying, and the provider carries responsibility for errors in its work. Ask for that in writing, including how errors are corrected and at whose cost.
When in-house still makes sense
Scanning new documents as they arrive, or clearing a small backlog, is usually fine to do yourself. The picture changes with volume, with a deadline (an office closing, a move, a records migration), or with files that are confidential, fragile or legally important.
How to compare the options
- Count the real in-house cost. Estimate the pages, the minutes per page for prep, scanning and checking, and the hourly cost of the people doing it. Then add equipment wear and the work that doesn’t get done.
- Ask what a quote includes. Preparation, quality control, indexing, delivery format, and what happens to the paper afterwards.
- Ask about security. Where the work is done, who has access, and how files are protected in transit and at rest.
- Ask how errors are handled. What is checked, what is guaranteed, and what happens if something is wrong.
- Check the rules for your records. Whether you may destroy the paper after scanning depends on the kind of record and your regulator, so confirm before anything is shredded.
Thinking about going digital? Get a quote for scanning.
Related reading
This article is general information, not legal advice. Confirm what applies to your records with your accountant, regulator or lawyer.