Tuesday 2 September 2014

Paperless Office-Document Scanning: The Filing System Of The Future

By Loris F. Andres


Administration almost always involves paperwork. Any business, government department or other organization uses forms and official documents in its procedures and archiving system. While this enormous volume of paperwork has traditionally been the subject of annoyance or jokes, paperless office-document scanning offers an electronic alternative.

Paper, printing materials and record storage locations are all part of the expenses of a paper-based operation. Labor is absorbed by maintaining and searching the organization's archives. The physical transportation or sending of paper correspondence also occasionally poses a challenge, in that large collections of records are difficult to move and fax machines do not reliably produce accurate copies of faxed material. Paper records are also easily susceptible to damage or loss.

Environmental activists have raised the issue of how the manufacture of paper uses trees. They oppose the use of paper as a storage or correspondence material. Recycled paper, which was introduced in response to this negative sentiment, is not yet a universally utilized resource. Discarded paper is a significant element of landfill sites and pollution.

It may therefore be more sensible to process paperwork electronically. Electronic storage options, such as USB sticks or computer hard disks, offer immense storage capacity. It takes only a short time to back up those records, even if they are particularly extensive. These electronic devices don't need much space and can be carried around by the user. On the other hand, the use of e-mail and document cloud sites eliminates the need for such mobility.

A document cloud website is a site on the internet that provides extensive storage space to its users. They can upload and keep substantial archives of records there. This is helpful, since users can potentially visit the site and download their stored records from anywhere that they may find themselves. They do not need to transport the material with them. Some cloud sites operate on a paid basis, so interested parties should research the available options in terms of the sites' security integrity and storage allowances and decide what will best meet their requirements.

The advantages of a paperless office over a paper-based one are, firstly, that the quality of scanned text is consistently high. Secondly, e-mail is instant and can be used to transmit massive amounts of records or other files. Recent file formats enable several hundred pages to be sent in a single attachment of several hundred kilobytes. People would not consider trying to fax a document of that size.

The expense of running an office can be greatly reduced through scanning and electronic document archiving. The outlay on the equipment required should be compared to the money saved. Paperless administration represents an area of the economy where those nasty paper cuts can be replaced by the press of a button.




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