Scanners and document management: benefits and uses

There is a dichotomy in most offices around the world. On the one hand the digital area with individual and network computers, on the other hand documents in paper form. This sometimes causes chaos and, above all, time is lost. Time spent searching for content.

Paperless work through digital processes

According to an international report by McKinsey, office workers spend 1.8 hours per day searching and gathering information, which is an average of 9.3 hours per week.

Accountants, secretaries, buyers, clerks, dispatchers and many other professional groups are busy processing administrative processes every day. The work of one employee is often dependent on that of another.

Every company now has a multifunction device that also supports the scan function. But for many, the term and the use of a document management system is still unknown.

In the current article we explain that it is worth using a document management system with your scanner. We will give you at least 15 reasons for using it, which will enable you to make your office paperless and digital and how you can use it to increase the efficiency of your company's core business.

Before we get into the reasons why, let's answer the question:

What use a DMS for in the company?

Invoices, bills of lading, accompanying letters, shipments or operating instructions for new devices and the associated guarantee certificates, to name just a few examples? Their digitization is often a long time coming, simply because there is a lack of staff and time. As a result, the analog mountain grows.

Large amounts of business information can be digitally captured, securely stored and shared

With a DMS and the scanner that is suitable for your needs, you can get the dichotomy and the unnecessary loss of time under control.

DMS also stands for document management software and is intended to manage documents, especially digital documents, which includes the conversion from analogue to digital. PaperOffice DMS is such software.

Because PaperOffice DMS makes it possible for analog paper to become digital content where it occurs.

Intelligently structured indexing assigns each document to the correct process by entering a keyword. With the own search engine in PaperOffice, all documents can then be found and called up. Depending on requirements, recorded letters are converted using OCR text recognition in order to be able to process them with compatible Office software.

We recognized the need, but:

What are the advantages of a paperless office?

In today's world, employees deal with a large number of different documents: original paper documents such as letters or contracts, PDFs and electronic documents such as files and emails.

In many companies, these documents are copied, printed out, forwarded, distributed and filed in different places. The search for important information is becoming increasingly difficult and leads to uneconomical workflows and overburdened employees. We have a detailed article, in which the need for document management systems is described and the advantages of using them are listed.

Your scanner together with PaperOffice DMS are the best partners to make your company paperless

However, if your employees start eliminating or at least reducing paper consumption in the offices or the entire company, you will also improve processes, increase productivity by digitizing data, use paperless methods and thus reduce costs.

Many other advantages and aspects have already been discussed in a detailed article on "Implementation in a paperless office".

Which scanners are suitable for the perfect collaboration?

For example, multifunction devices (MFP) such as those from Brother or Konica Minolta and other manufacturers.

Printer, scanner and copier all-in-one: The scanned documents go to the central directory via these central devices or via "direct scan to mail" as an e-mail to a mailbox in your Outlook, which is monitored by PaperOffice, for example and thus automatically enters the document management software.

Or simply integrate your custom PaperOffice address into your scanner, so-called DropMail email address, as the storage location for your scanned files. PaperOffice archives all files easily by email.

For those who want to scan paper documents in the normal way, the "ScanConnect" module integrated by default in PaperOffice is ideal. Because this supports every scanner, multifunction device or large-capacity copier with an integrated scan unit and is very easy to use.

Nevertheless, it is unimportant how your paper documents get to PaperOffice, because thanks to the automated OCR text recognition, the content of all your scanned documentation is recognized.

No matter what is made of paper, it is scanned and recorded with high precision thanks to AI-based optimization.

As soon as documents are recorded, their content is indexed using raw text decomposition. To put it simply, the content is written word by word into a special register, with the algorithm recognizing individual words in a word combination and recording them in the same way.

Digitization and document management

When we talk about document management systems, we must not forget: the higher the level of digitization of the information that is part of the processes, the higher the level of control and automation that we can achieve. We have already written an article on the advantages of digitalization, click here.

In the first step, you determine which documents belong to our processes, how we integrate them into our document management system and which information is to be extracted and stored together with the documents in your database. Once the information is included, we define its life cycle, how it will interact with other processes and how we can integrate it.

Information comes from different sources

Most likely, we will come across information coming from different sources and in different formats. Some of it in digital form, stored in files or databases and some in the form of printed documents.

What do we do with digital documents in pdf, doc, etc. format? Here the process is very simple.

Drag the digital document into the PaperOffice interface. Or have your Windows folders easily monitored after documents have been received.

Documents in paper form can easily be scanned and converted into digital format thanks to the integrated scanner.

Thanks to the Optical Character Recognition program (OCR = Optical Character Recognition), we have already taken an important step. Using a scanner or other digitizing device, we not only convert the document into an image, but can also "read" its content electronically.

Not only is the pure OCR text included in the database, thanks to the artificial intelligence (AI) called PIA, automation can either be specified manually or automatically.

This is how we use the system to recognize and define which document areas need to be read out automatically. Such as invoice number, date, products, amounts, etc. Accordingly, we have all the necessary information in our document management system.

The digitization of information via OCR makes it easier to integrate a wide variety of documentation into the management of processes and workflows.

It all sounds good, but how is mass archiving done from the scanner?

PaperOffice DMS has also taken mass archiving from your scanner into account for the most important features relating to text recognition, AI integration and keywording.

The ScanConnect module not only offers a direct connection between your scanner and PaperOffice DMS. ScanConnect is a powerful scanner tool for manual scans and hides other interesting features to help you with bulk scanning.

First prepare all document pages for scanning and then place the separator pages between the individual documents that you want to separate.

PaperOffice recognizes the separator pages and saves the documents individually.

15 reasons to use your scanner together with PaperOffice DMS

• Reason 1 - Find documents quickly in PaperOffice DMS

  Full-text indexing and Google-Like search: In a document management system like PaperOffice DMS, you can find your scanned documents, receipts and information in seconds. This is possible because your documents are analyzed and indexed with full-text recognition as soon as they are stored.

  You simply enter a search term, like with Google, and PaperOffice lists all the results. Yes, just like with Google: Because you can find any text content of any document in a matter of seconds using the integrated search engine, full-text search and additional filter functions.

  You will never want to give up the keyword search in PaperOffice again and with the search filter you will find every document, no matter how detailed - including sending emails, exporting to Excel or the file system!

• Reason 2 – Automatically version paper documents

  PaperOffice automatically versions every changed document, creates a shadow copy and saves it separately so that you can open the desired version again at any time.

  Thanks to the integrated VersionControl, every document change is recognized and saved as a shadow copy as a new document version. You can open, export and edit each version independently.

• Reason 3 – Separators for batch scans of multiple documents

  Simply place a PaperOffice separator page in front of each document that should be separated. PaperOffice recognizes the separator pages during the scanning process and saves the documents separately.

• Reason 4 – Smart separator pages for direct filing from scanner

  PaperOffice offers you the option of manual filing to fully automated filing without any intervention. All fields are filled in automatically and even the storage path can be generated and used dynamically depending on the date.

• Reason 5 – XML/JSON enabled QR codes on separator pages

  Store XML/JSON-capable QR codes with keywords on separator pages and scan your document stack - PaperOffice recognizes the separator pages and QR codes with your XML/JSON commands and keywords the documents when they are stored.

  In this way you can save individual separator pages with a document type, for example "invoice" and a special storage location for your mass scan, and thus save your scan files in a targeted manner.

• Reason 6 - Scan Folder Directory Monitoring

  Your copier can store the scans in a specific folder? Great, just have this folder monitored and you'll have fully automatic filing in seconds!

  Have PaperOffice monitor any folder automatically. As soon as new files appear in this folder, they are archived according to your specifications and processed completely autonomously.

• Reason 7 - Set up filing rules for directory monitors

  Would you like to capture paper documents automatically after scanning, but also automatically tag them down to the smallest detail? First scan all documents into a folder, then set up directory monitoring. Then specify that a specific filing mask is used as soon as something is in the folder.

  In addition to monitoring, you can also specify all relevant information such as name, storage location, document type, etc. PaperOffice takes care of the entire filing for you.

• Reason 8 – Powerful scanner tool for manual scans

  Single pages, bulk scans or photo scans: No matter what is made of paper, it is scanned and recorded with high precision thanks to AI-based optimization.

  The integrated ScanConnect supports every scanner, multifunction device or large-capacity copier with an integrated scan unit and is very easy to use.

• Reason 9 – Scan2Folder support

  If your scanner is not a WIA or TWAIN scanner, PaperOffice offers the Scan2Folder option. You save the scanned documents in a folder that is monitored by PaperOffice.

• Reason 10 - OCR text recognition of analogue documents in over 100 languages

  PaperOffice reliably converts analog text from over 100 languages, including Cyrillic and Asian character sets.

  This is how international documents can be scanned in your company - PaperOffice DMS recognizes the language and carries out text recognition. This allows you to search for the document within your database and find it within seconds.

• Reason 11 – Automatic conversion to PDF/A for long-term archiving
  Paper documents are automatically saved in the legally valid ISO standard 19005 PDF/A. The PDF/A-1 format is the most restrictive format, which consists of 2 levels: PDF/A-1b for visual reproducibility and PDF/A-1a for Unicode mapping and content structuring.
• Reason 12 – No cloud deployed and/or required

  PaperOffice relies on databases that you use locally or on your NAS, such as Synology or QNAP. In this way, all of the information about your documents, such as thumbnails and text recognition that has been carried out, as well as other keywords, is stored in your database.

  In this way, the data does not end up in third-party cloud providers and you do not have to pay monthly costs for data storage.

• Reason 13 – GDPR and GOBD storage

  Regardless of whether you remove pages, rotate them or blacken areas with PaperOffice - everything is versioned in an audit-proof manner according to GOBD for perfect filing.

  PaperOffice automatically versions every changed document, creates a shadow copy and saves it separately so that you can open the desired version again at any time.

• Reason 14 – Call up digital documents via QR code (cam scan)

  The use of PaperOffice QR Codes opens up excellent possibilities, such as automatic versioning of already archived and changed paper documents that contain the same QR Code.

  You can also easily search for the documents in PaperOffice using a QR code - open the QR code search and hold the QR code of the PaperOffice document in the webcam to display it in PaperOffice.

• Reason 15 - Unbeatable value for money

  PaperOffice purchase licenses have a lifetime validity without follow-up costs and with the optional PaperOffice PLUS even all follow-up updates, new annual versions and free personal support by telephone and Teamviewer at a calculable fixed price without any nasty surprises.

  These were just 15 reasons why you should use your scanner with a document management system. In addition to those listed above, PaperOffice offers you many more reasons: management of life cycles (retention periods), logging of access, protection against unauthorized access and encryption, intuitive integration in Outlook / Office, indexing of documents (metadata), workflow solutions and much more more.

  You can see the features by going to our site and going to "What can PaperOffice do".

Scanning documents and archiving them in the DMS offers companies enormous advantages. All processes involving documents are optimized. Data protection and data security remain guaranteed.

The paperless office relieves employees. You save a lot of search effort and costs. And you improve the legal certainty of your administrative processes.

For many companies, PaperOffice DMS is the first step towards digitization. By scanning documents and archiving them digitally, you create much more than just a digital copy of the original. Scanning turns unstructured information into structured data.

Be sure to avoid this error

While large companies have long appointed digitization officers who deal with the topic of converting analog documents full-time, small and medium-sized companies usually lack human resources, especially since appropriate professional qualifications are required.
However, this is a common mistake and leads to bad investments, because many manufacturers take advantage of this ignorance.

Interim conclusion

You don't need an IT specialist or a trained librarian!

All you really need is

• the right software
• reliable IT partner
• corresponding hardware

Sometimes the hardware is often already there, has more potential than before and can be used immediately.

Tip

By the way, there is a special article on the subject of "Digital invoice processing", which reported on the advantages of digitization or digital invoice processing:

Digitize incoming invoice processing: made easy with PaperOffice

Click here for the guide