The only thing worse than having to pay to convert (scan) your documents from paper to electronic images is when you have to do it twice. This summer a customer decided to save some money and hire a couple of college students to scan their case files during the 
summer. A noble thought and a practical way to put interns to work. Just plug the machines in, point to the cabinets and let them “have at it”. Afterall, the cost of a couple scanners and 2-3 hungry college students would be certainly less than paying a firm that specializes in this service, right?
However, a recent query of the files (all with “Scanned” boldly stamped in red on each case file jacket) found that a 7 page document (with 3 pages that were double sided) only had 7 images and not the 10 (7+3) it should have. Other files were double in size as the “blank page drop out” feature was not activated on the scanner. Several documents still had staples in them: meaning a second page of the document (possibly) was not scanned and a metal staple was pulled through the machine which leads to damaged parts, paper jams and scratched glass surfaces on the scanner. Scanning appears to be easy, but without proper knowledge, training, supervision, quality checks and experience it can make a difficult task even more difficult to fix. Remember the old addage, “Garbage in, Garbage out”?
In today’s economy everyone should be looking for the most economical way to accomplish their goal, but not at the cost of quality, especially when it comes to mission critical, historical, or personal data. We are now re-scanning the entire project.
Work with a vendor to find the best solution, do business with a creative firm that can think outside the box and create a budget friendly solution (i.e. maybe you don’t need to scan everything right away and a hybrid storage “scan on demand” solution may be able to meet your needs?) Look for a vendor that has more than 3-5 years of hands on experience and can give you specific references (my company has been scanning since 2000 and can provide an active list of at least 10 customers we are currently working with).
Hungry college kids are great (I have two of them) and can perform many tasks very well, but there is more to scanning than dropping documents into a feeder and hitting the start button. The care of your mission critical, historical and personal records are your responsibility, if you have a ”back file” of information you need scanned make sure you have have the expertise and are able to put into place the quality checks, procedures necessary for a great job… or hire a great company (like mine) that offers you a money back guarantee so you will never have to pay twice!
For more information, contact Unity Scanning Systems today!
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