Imagine if all of the world’s books, documents, and files were scanned. It would be a vast library of knowledge. There have been attempts to do it, most notably by search engines, reference websites, and online encyclopedias. But they are still far from covering all the documents ever produced. The obstacle is that the task would entail a lot of work scanning each document. It would take a lot of people who can do the scanning to finish the project.
Companies with their own scanning and digitalization projects have found the solution in document scanning machines and software applications. Technology can definitely help a lot in speeding up the document scanning process. You can check this and other similar sites if you’re looking for document management software to enhance your document management system.
Hence, here are some ways you can enhance the automation of your document scanning workflows:
1. Prep your documents
The first step in any automation project for document scanning workflows is to make sure that you prep your files and documents. No matter how advanced your technology is, keep in mind that there’s still one crucial step of scanning the physical paper before it becomes a digital file. When it becomes a digital file, you can do whatever you want with it. But before that happens, you have to handle it as a physical paper file.
As a physical object, its state could be in a condition that isn’t ready for scanning. A practical example of this is when your files still have staples punched on them or if some files have paper clips or sticky notes. Some documents might have torn pages that could cause problems while scanning. Though some scanners can now automatically flip the pages, something might get stuck if a staple wire or paper clip restricts how the pages can be flipped.
The best practice for automation here would be to enable smooth document scanning by checking each document to ensure there are no objects that could hold up the scanning process. There is no substitute or alternative for this, for now. Even the latest scanners don’t have robotic arms to remove staple wires or paper clips.
2. Automate the capture task
After you’ve prepped your files and documents by removing staples and paper clips, the next step in automating your document scanning workflow would be to automate the capture task. There are two basic methods of capturing your files and documents. The first type is called document capture, while the second one is called data capture. These two methods involve completely different technological processes.
The capture method suitable for your needs depends on your business objectives for capturing the files and documents. A physical paper file or document is converted into a digital replica in document capture. The output file is usually saved in any of the following file formats – PDF, JPEG, or TIFF. Typically, the document scanning software system that you use would also be able to import electronic files from other formats such as word, text, or spreadsheet documents.
Data capture does a little bit more than what document capture does. Document capture gets the image of the entire document as if it were a picture and converts it into a portable document format. By contrast, data capture parses the documents for their contents, extracts the information in the contents that match the types of data they’re looking for and then sorts all the collected data into a structured form based on pre-selected data fields.
A practical example of data capture is when scanned by billing statements, invoices, statements of account, and receipts. When these documents go through data capture, the output will not be an image saved as a JPEG picture or PDF document. Instead, the data capture process extracts the details of the information contained in the document. It will extract, for instance, customer reference numbers, service ID numbers, account numbers, billing periods, the amount due, outstanding balance, and other relevant data found in the parsed documents.
3. Automate data conversion and saving process
Another aspect of the document scanning workflow that you can further improve or enhance is when the captured analog or paper documents are converted and saved into digital files. Conversion is different from capture. Capture is part of the process when the appearance of data in the document is viewed and taken by the scanning device. Conversion is part of the process when the captured image or data is converted to a digital file.
You can do this by getting a software application that automates the naming and saving of files that have been captured from their paper copies. This can take up a lot of time if you or your staff handling the document scanning project will have to manually save every document that was captured by the scanning device. Anyone who has tried scanning and saving multiple documents knows that renaming the files and saving them can take at least five minutes each.
Conclusion
Document scanning software can help speed up and enhance the document management workflow. One way to accomplish this is to ensure that your documents are properly prepared before loading them for scanning. Another way of doing it is by automating the capture task. Some workflows take up too much time just capturing the image or data. Another way of doing it is by automating the data conversion and saving process.